VT Promoting Desktop Grids

General project information

Leader: Robert Lovas, NGI_HU NIL, FP7 IDGF-SP project coordinator.

• Administrative support for the VT project will be provided by Richard McLennan (User Community Support Officer, richard.mclennan@egi.eu)
  
• Gergely Sipos will be responsible for the delivery of technical activities from the EGI side (Technical Outreach Manager, gergely.sipos@egi.eu)
  

Mailing list: vt-desktop-grid-promotion@mailman.egi.eu
Status: Members can join
Start date: Expected 21th October 2013
End date: Expected 21th April, 2014 (duration 6 months)
Meetings: Normally as a teleconference via Webex. The 1st teleconference meeting has been scheduled <?> (Europe/Amsterdam).
Look at meetings schedule: [[File:]]

See all the meetings in Indico: <?>

Project Initiation document: File:DG VT proposal v4.pdf

Motivation

Desktop Grids (as a middleware technology for e-Infrastructures) is available for NGIs as a result of multi-year long joint work between the EGEE-III/EGI-InSPIRE and the EDGeS/EDGI projects.

The technology enables NGIs to access the resource pool offered by volunteers or organizations worldwide.

As one of the key stakeholders in the Desktop Grid related research field, MTA SZTAKI from NGI_HU with the strong support from the International Desktop Grid Federation provides bridges between EGI VOs and Desktop Grid resources in order to seamlessly integrate them. The bridges enable the interoperability between EGI core infrastructure and Desktop Grid solutions (among others) at job management, monitoring, and accounting level read more. The remaining documentation, training, and support related integration to be continued until the start of the VT, and completed in the framework of the VT.

However, there is a gap to be filled though – promotion of the technological solution to the NGIs, ideally through the Operation Managers – who are the single point of contact to reach site managers, and the NILs who are the single point of contact to reach those who support scientific applications with e-infrastructure solutions.

“EGI-InSPIRE is ideally placed to join together the new Distributed Computing Infrastructures (DCIs) such as clouds, supercomputing networks and desktop grids, for the benefit of user communities within the European Research Area.” -- EGI-InSPIRE Project fact sheet

Despite the on-going work (see the potential value section) and the benefits of the integrated Desktop Grid DCI resources available for EGI users, only a part of the EGI community is aware of the latest Desktop Grid related achievements, and a fraction of the EGI users and infrastructure operators take their advantages in everyday practice. In order to get closer the EGI community and Desktop Grid community; a part of the targeted objectives are technical ones but there is stronger focus on the human aspects – training, networking and support activities.

Main objectives of the proposed Virtual Team:

1. Promote and train the Desktop Grid related technologies in the EGI communities

2. Utilize the available bridged Desktop Grid resources (such as EDGeS@home) by more VOs

3. Increase the number of heavily used EGI applications on the integrated (Desktop Grid) infrastructure with focus on widespread tools/solutions/approaches

4. Improve documentation including

4.1 Road maps (http://desktopgridfederation.org/road-map),

4.2 Training materials (http://desktopgridfederation.org/technical-wiki), and

4.3 Manuals (http://doc.desktopgrid.hu).

5. Complete the final remaining steps for full integration concerning e.g. support tools

6. Find joint EGI champion(s) - IDGF ambassador(s)

Output

Deadline	Output
Month 2	Identification of applications and VOs to be extended, collectingrequirements, first trainings
Month 4	First set of new supported VOs and applications are ready
Month 6	Improved training/dissemination materials, selected new ambassador(s)/champion(s), final report with all supported VOs and applications

Resources

The VT will be led by MTA SZTAKI from the Hungarian NGI. Minimum 0.5 and maximum 2 person-months are expected from each participant NGIs depending on the available skills, experts, and applications in the given NGI. Mostly the communication/dissemination channels to the enlisted stakeholders (see below in the table) are required from the EGI.eu, and reviewers/advisors for the expected deliverables.

Required skills	Related objective(s)	Related task(s)
Application experts: developers and/or heavy users	3, 4	0, 3
Infrastructure operators: Operation managers, VO/site managers	2	0, 4
User support team members	3, 4	0, 2
Dissemination team members	1, 4, 5	0, 1

Tasks

Task	Outcome	Means of delivery	Link to outcome	Expected time of delivery (after VT start)	Updates & comments
Task 0	Full definition of the project objectives, motivation, method, deliverables and timeframe.
Task 1	Dissemination: on-line channels, printed materials, webinar and face-to-face events with focus on the benefits of Desktop Grids. Objective 1 will be targeted with these dissemination activities.
Task 2	Training: improve and add training materials about integrated Desktop Grids to repositories / give trainings (on-line, on-site) on-demand. Objectives 4 will be addressed directly with these technical training/documentation activities but it also serves as base for Objective 3 (i.e. having more applications on the infrastructure).
Task 3	Application support: user community/ambassador identification and improve support activities. Objective 3 will be addressed directly with this support activity but it also gives output/feedbacks for Objective 4 (i.e. improve the documentation).
Task 4	Infrastructure integration: extend more EGI VOs with Desktop Grids (deploy new or use existing modified Computing Elements for bridging EGI VOs and Desktop Grids). Objective 2 will be targeted with these technical activities.

Members

Email Gergely.Sipos@egi.eu or Karolis.Eigelis@egi.eu if you wish to join! An EGI SSO account is required. Setup one at www.egi.eu/sso

Project leader: Robert Lovas, NGI_HU NIL, FP7 IDGF-SP project coordinator

EGI.eu contacts:

• Gergely Sipos (gergely.sipos@egi.eu), EGI.eu, Netherlands
• Richard McLennan (richard.mclennan@egi.eu), EGI.eu, Netherlands

Other members:

• Hungary
  • Robert Lovas (MTA SZTAKI)
  • Jozsef Kovacs (MTA SZTAKI)
• UK
  • Tamas Kiss (University of Westminster, with endorsement from the UK_NGI)
• The Netherlands
  • Alexandre Bonvin (Utrecht University/WeNMR)
• Spain
  • Fermin Serrano Sanz (IBERCIVIS)
• Malaysia
  • M. Farhan Sjaugi (Malaysian Academic Grid)
• Taiwan
  • Vicky Huang (ASGC)

Observers:

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