Italy wants BIGEST GridNaples 05 August 2002 In Italy, there are several initiatives to create large scale Grids. The first is a recently accepted proposal called MIUR-FIRB that is co-ordinated by the Italian National Research Council (CNR). MIUR-FIRB will enable ICT platforms for distributed high-performance Computational Grids oriented to the development of complex multi-disciplinary applications and scalable Virtual Organizations. A second initiative, co-ordinated by the Italian high-energy physics organisation INFN, called Italian Grid for Business, Industry, Government and E-Science & Technology (IG-BIGEST), aims at the creation of an Italian Research Area (IRA) and supporting infrastructure. This is an Italian e-Science initiative, currently in proposal stage.
Six centres will participate in MIUR-FIRB: three from CNR (Pisa, Cosenza-Napoli,
Perugia), INFN (National Institute of Nuclear Physics), ASI (Centro di Geodesia Spaziale,
Matera, of the Italian Space Agency), and CNIT (Photonic Network Lab of the Consorzio
Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni).
The project, with the official title "Enabling Platforms for High-Performance Computational Grids Oriented to Scalable Virtual Organizations",
will cover technology from all Grid system levels ranging from high-speed networks, middleware services, programming tools
to programming environments. Applications targeted are: Astronomy, Earth Observation Systems,
Biology, Computational Chemistry, and Geophysics.
MIUR-FIRB will implement a Grid infrastructure, on a national scale in order to provide the Italian research community with a powerful and
flexible resource to be used in different computational science research sectors, but that is also usable for commercial and industrial applications.
There is funding for a three year project, starting in November 2002 of 8.1 million euro. The new project proposal IG-BIGEST is seen as a part of a large future European Framework VI Grid testbed. IG-BIGEST wants to concentrate in Italy on Grid technology development and the creation and support of the eScience Grid Italian Centers. It will also develop specialised Grid Services with IT Industries and develop Grid applications for end user Industries. Attention will be paid to
development of Grid-enabled Applications for SMEs,
Grid application solutions for eGovernment, eBusiness and eLearning.
Technology development in IG-BIGEST includes the "usual" items: Programming Tools and Environment, Security, Data Intensive Services, Knowledge discovery Services, Grid Portals and Resource Management that includes Brokering, Scheduling and Monitoring.
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