Speaker
Describe the scientific/technical community and the scientific/technical activity using (planning to use) the EGEE infrastructure. A high-level description is needed (neither a detailed specialist report nor a list of references).
The mission of the UK NGS is to provide coherent electronic access for UK
researchers to all computational and data based resources and facilities
required to carry out their research, independent of resource or researcher
location. This access will be based upon integrated open standards and the
NGS will operate the core services required to exploit local, National and
International Partner facilities such as EGEE.
With a forward look to future evolution, discuss the issues you have encountered (or that you expect) in using the EGEE infrastructure. Wherever possible, point out the experience limitations (both in terms of existing services or missing functionality)
Looking ahead the NGS aims to improve interoperability with EGEE. This has
proved difficult due to incompatibilities between the NGS and EGEE
infrastructure. Combined with tight EGEE timescales this has led to technical
choices and software products which are difficult for the NGS to deploy.
However, the EGEE and NGS experience is teaching us which aspects are
absolutely vital for large scale production grids. From the user perspective
differences between NGS and EGEE are gradually reducing.
Describe the added value of the Grid for the scientific/technical activity you (plan to) do on the Grid. This should include the scale of the activity and of the potential user community and the relevance for other scientific or business applications
To date the NGS currently has approximately 500 users and has been
successful in attracting users from a wide range of disciplines. Examples of
current work include projects in chemistry, engineering, Census data analysis,
archaeology, medical imaging, molecular dynamics, integrated biology and
biological processing. Users come from over 25 different institutions, mostly, but
not exclusively from the UK. By utilising the grid these communities are enabled
to co-operate in international collaborations across wide area infrastructure
such as EGEE with a reducing amount of effort and the option to access
resources that were previously unavailable to their community.
Report on the experience (or the proposed activity). It would be very important to mention key services which are essential for the success of your activity on the EGEE infrastructure.
Part of the success depends on providing end user support, documentation and
training. The NGS Support Centre is a virtual, distributed centre comprising
CCLRC, the White Rose Grid at the University of Leeds, the University of
Manchester, the University of Oxford and the National e-Science Centre at the
University of Edinburgh. The support centre operates a central helpdesk for the
NGS that is closely linked to the UK and Ireland Regional Operations Centre.
Through this link the NGS helpdesk is integrated into the European wide
support structure co-ordinated by EGEE. Through the National e-Science Centre
the NGS leverages training and related materials developed for the EGEE
project.
