CESNET to Represent the Czech National Grid Infrastructure

The Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has named the CESNET association as the representative of the National Grid Infrastructure (NGI) in all of the international organizations in which the NGI will be active. A key international project in this field is the European Grid Initiative—Design Study (EGI_DS), the goal of which is to define conditions for the creation of a long-term sustainable pan-European grid infrastructure and to commence the realization of this proposal. At the beginning of the year the CESNET association became the coordinator of the EGI_DS project, and the head of the association's grid research activities, Luděk Matyska, was named as project director.

EGI_DS is a conceptual project that brings a new pan-European grid infrastructure organization model to ensure cooperation between individual national grid activities. A total of 42 national grid infrastructures are currently involved in the project. The entire EGI concept is based on the existence of National Grid Initiatives (NGI), which, similar to the National Research and Education Network (NREN), are to be responsible for grid coordination at the national level. NGI are to be the basic building blocks of the pan-European grid infrastructure.

The EGI_DS project was launched in September 2007 with the participation of nine partners: The University of Linz (Austria), the associations DFN (Germany), CCLRC (Great Britain), INFN (Italy), GRNET (Greece), INRIA (France), CERN (Switzerland), CSC (Finland) and CESNET (Czech Republic). The project then created a Policy Board, a body with representatives from all countries interested in being involved in building a long-term sustainable grid infrastructure. Each country is represented on the Policy Board either by an existing representative or an instituted NGI. Thanks to this the Policy Board can act as a formal representative of all European countries and their grid interests.

In addition to its role as the official coordinator of the EGI_DS project, CESNET also acts as the official Nation Grid Initiative (NGI) in the Czech Republic. This year in the middle of May CESNET invited the other NGI involved in the EGI to sign a Letter of Intent and subsequently the Memorandum of Understanding (http://web.eu-egi.eu/news/), on the basis of which the EGI should develop with an even greater pan-European dynamic than to date.

Additional information on the European Grid Initiative can be found at web.eu-egi.eu.

The CESNET association was founded by universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It is currently financed mainly with funds from the Governmental Council for Research and Development and its own members. The association is involved in the research and development of information and communication technology, and is building and developing the CESNET2 gigabit fibre optic network for research and education. Thanks to the research activities and achieved results, the CESNET association represents the Czech Republic in the project for building the pan-European GÉANT3 network and is actively contributing to its realization.