The European Union policy on the GridAmsterdam 06 March 2001 The European Union has formulated a policy on Grid computing. The Grid is considered an important item of the e-Europe action plan. It is supported in the current Research programme (IST) and will probably be part of the next Sixth Framework programme, that will start in 2002. This was explained by Frans de Bruine from the European Commission at the Global Grid Forum in Amsterdam.
The political context, in which the Grid in Europe belongs, is the e-Europe action plan, that was defined by European leaders at the Lisbon 2000 Summit.
E-Europe says it is a strategic goal for Europe for the next decade to become the most dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the world. The Research and Development programme IST (Information Societies
Technology) is the EU's vehicle to express that policy. The goals are to stimulate the use of the Internet, invest in people and skills; and contribute to a cheaper, faster, and secure Internet
On the network side, this means stimulating xDSL, Cable TV and Wireless.
In the middle-ware part the Grid fits in. The EU wants to foster a World Wide Grid. The European Research backbone
(Geant) will be supported. Also the National research networks need to be upgraded.
Currently the EU is discussing its research programme for the 2002-2006 period. This is called
the Framework 6 programme. Main principles in this
proposal are:
Within the priority areas, the Grid is explicitly mentioned: Create large-scale distributed systems and platforms, including Grid based systems to solve complex problems. Also support of the network infrastructure is mentioned. Current Grid related efforts are supported with over 160 million euro. For the interconnection of the national research networks, 80 million euro is allocated, for application test beds, another 81 million euro. Focus is on three items: Grids, Geant and IPv6. In Grids, it are especially the pioneering initiatives and transatlantic test beds that will be supported. Work will peer with their US counterparts and there is a US-European working group. The Geant network should support the underlying high-speed network for the whole programme (not only Grids). It provides global European connectivity. In the near future Geant will be upgraded 10 Gbit/s. IPv6 is the next generation of basic Internet technology. With the EU research programme, a test bed is foreseen. There is an emphasis on mobile networks, because there the need for IPv6 is high and probably an implementation can be easier done than on the main Internet. Because IPv6 is of world wide importance, there are cooperations set-up with Japan, Korea, Canada and others. There are three Grid projects that are currently supported: EuroGrid, DataGrid and Damien. There will be new opportunities for more proposals in this year. The Grid will become a cross-action programme: i.e. a proposal does not have to fit precisely into one of the predefined research areas. The Grid is seen by the Commission as an instrument to strengthen European competitiveness in research, industry and business.
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