Italiano English TriGrid VL Project
Goal of the project is to provide the Regione Siciliana of a Virtual Laboratory that concerns computational grid, for scientific and industrial application.
It deals to realize an e-infrastructure of distributed computation and of storage on demand (the first in Italy on regional scale) that it is “open”, general purpose, very high technology level, and connected to the international computational grids to improve both scientific collaboration (about basic and applied study) of Universities and Sicilian Research Institutes with the rest of the world, and the competitiveness of Small and Medium Companies (PMI), that working in the district, and the efficacy and capillarity of Regional Public Administration’s service.
TriGrid VL proposes to make the porting of multi-disciplinary scientific application and industrial use B2B and B2E, with the software and hardware of the grid, through the use of web gateway and high level users (“Problem Solving Environments”, PSE), user-friendly from each user and with every device (personal computer, desktop or notebook, or mobile) ,and to execute a sequence of dissemination activity of the “grid paradigm”, technology transfer toward the PMI and promotion of the service by way of events and training course opened to public or private staff.
Aim is create and/or facilitate experience of spin-off in the private entrepreneurship provides of high value in the area of Information and Communication Technology.
The main places of this grid, that produce large funds of resources and storage of data, are interrelated in the university of Messina and Palermo, in INAF and INFN of Catania, and connected to Italian and European grid (considering that Catania is the only active point in Sicily at the moment) by way of networks at large use such away being accessible in free and non stop way, for all the time of the Project, from every person and Virtual Organization that call request.
the Computational Grid
Duration (in months) and starting time of the project
Places of development of the plan
The computational Grid (as follows simply indicated as grid) may be thought like the evolution of Internet (see fig. 1) in which virtual communities highly scalable and dynamics of scientists and technologists, belong to publics or privates Subject, can access and share, in a transparent way and ubiquitous, not only information but also and above all huge resources of calculation (supercomputers and cluster of PC) and memory of mass ("Array" of discs or tape library of magnetic tapes of high density) for the resolution of complex computational problems or managerial disciplinary Inter-multi/disciplines, otherwise unsolved with traditional technology.
In other words, a grid is both hardware and software services, in the field of the advanced calculation and of the nets data transmissions to high speed network that allows to various geographic sites to share the own resources in dynamics and intelligent way and allowing the transparent, secure, controlled access by multiple Virtual Organizations to public or private scientific and technologic research.
As when we connect an household-electric to the power, unconscious of which Power Station give us the need power, in the same way, connecting your own PC or your laptop to the network, it will be possible to do operations of “data mining” on a great number of data and to run complex simulation and analysis calculation without to know where this data are executed or in which storage system they are resident. Besides, it will be allowed to access to effective and leading instruments for the remote control and multi-co-operation.
This happens connecting the scientific instruments and the data bases with a number of software services (a sort of “glue” indicated with middle-ware) insisting on the network of the different sites composing the computational grid (see fig.2).
Duration (in months) and and starting time of the project
The project started the 8 November 2005 after the contract with the Regione Siciliana and will have all-in duration of 24 months.
Places of development of the plan
The present Research Project provide for the realization of a Virtual Laboratory in Sicily, implemented by a computational grid for scientific and industrial applications, constituted by three big Grid sites, that will give the great computing and storage resource, inside the University of Messina e Palermo and in the University Campus of Catania, where there is the headquarters the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare Sezione di Catania, the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania dell’Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica and the Department of the University that cooperate in the project.
In this sites will be developed the research activity of the present plan, and these sites are all in zona Eleggibile Lett. a).
