Last updated: May 08 2007 12:39:43
EELA Executive Summary  


EELA: creating a human network between Europe and Latin America
Summary


Project name:
EELA

Contract no.:
IST-026409

Project type:
SSA

Start date:
1/01/2006

Duration:
24 months

Total budget:
2568320€

Funding from the EC:
1700000 €

Total effort in person-month:
1109

Web site:
www.ue-eela.org

Contact person:
Ramón Gavela
email: ramon.gavela@ciemat.es
tel.: +34 91 346 6390


Project participants:
CEDERJBR
CERN EU
CIEMAT ES
CLARA LA
CSIC ES
CUBAENERGIA CU
INFN IT
LIP POR
RED.ES ES
REUNA CL
RNP BR
SENAMHI PE
UC ES
UDEC CL
UFF BR
UFRJ BR
ULA VE
UNAM MX
UNLP AR
UPV ES
UTFSM CL

Key words:
Information Technology
Grid Infrastructure
E-Science
Collaboration with other EC funded projects:
EGEE GÉANT2/GN2
ALICE/CLARA
The EELA (E-infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America) project aims at establishing a bridge between the existing e-Infrastructures in Europe and those emerging in Latin America, through the creation of an interoperable Grid Infrastructure - based on the RedCLARA and GÉANT networks - for the development and deployment of advanced applications in Biomedicine, High Energy Physics, e-Education and Climate. EELA is expected to help reducing the digital divide in Latin-America, making available to researchers a high performance e-Infrastructure for advanced investigations, later extendable to a larger community of users.
OBJECTIVESPROJECT ORGANIZATION
The EELA project has three main objectives:
 Establish a collaboration network between European institutions where Grid expertise exists (e.g. EGEE project), and Latin American institutions where Grid activities are emerging.
 Set up a pilot e-Infrastructure in LA, interoperable with the EGEE one in Europe allowing to run enhanced applications thus enabling dissemination of knowledge and experience on Grid technology.
 Ultimately set up a steady framework for e-Science collaboration between Europe and Latin America.
The EELA project is organized in four Work Packages (WP).
 WP1: Project Administration and Technical Management.
 WP2: Pilot Testbed Operation and Support. It implements all necessary services to access the LA-EU e-Infrastructure, provides a framework for the end user and makes available resources to run applications.
 WP3: Identification and Support of Grid Enhanced Applications.
 WP4: Dissemination Activities. It imparts the Grid knowledge.
EELA CONSORTIUMAREAS OF APPLICATION
Europe: CERN, CIEMAT (Spain), CSIC (Spain), INFN (Italy), LIP (Portugal), Red.ES (Spain), UC (Spain) and UPV (Spain).

Latin America: CECIERJ/CEDERJ (Brazil), CLARA, CUBAENERGIA (Cuba), REUNA (Chile), RNP (Brazil), UDEC (Chile), UFF (Brazil), UFRJ (Brazil), ULA (Venezuela), UNAM (Mexico), UNLP (Argentina), UTFSM (Chile) and SENAMHI (Peru).
The project includes applications that have already well established research links and where the experience guarantees that the Grid will enhance performances. These are Biomedical and High Energy Physics applications already supported in EGEE.
Two additional areas are also considered: Education in Grid environment and Climate, with emphasis on the study of "El Niño" phenomenon, a topic where the Grid is expected to greatly enhance the research perspectives.
PROJECT OUTCOMES
The EELA project shall provide easy, fast, secure and cheap access to very large computing power, storage and network resources through:
 The integration of GRID middleware standards of the Open Grid Forum (OGF).
 The use of high bandwidth Regional Networking infrastructures (GEANT, RedCLARA)
Expected spin offs include:
 Share of know-how in Grid between Europe and Latin America.
 Introduction of participants to best practices in computing, telecommunications, etc.
 Interaction between research communities and governmental institutions in Latin America for long-term e-Infrastructures and e-Science support.
 Stimulation of new collaborative projects in scientific, educational and cultural fields.

INNOVATION
EELA proposes innovative technologies and strategies. Technologically, the challenge is to efficiently share large amount of data across a wide network area through a global file system. This integrated platform shall enhance the computing capability in Europe and even more in Latin America, thanks to the possibility of redistributing the global computational workload by migrating jobs across national borders, in a way that is totally transparent to end users.

From the strategic point of view, the EELA project will deploy a computing and storage infrastructure through a deep integration of existing national high-end platforms, tightly coupled to a dedicated network by means of advanced Grid software. Strategies of coordinated operation have been identified and agreed. The result will be an integrated infrastructure whose capabilities shall be more efficient than the sum of its constituent parts.

The benefits of the Grid enhanced applications running on the EELA infrastructure are twofold: besides their obvious scientific importance, several of these applications will have a noticeable social impact. New inhibitors for Malaria, Influenza and other neglected diseases (responsible for the daily death of thousands of people), access to Education for isolated people and powerful climate prediction are some good examples.