CHAIN

To coordinate and consolidate efforts and recent results with a vision of interaction model which is uniformed and optimised for e-Infrastructures and specifically for grid interfaces between Europe and the rest of the world.

INFN (Italy) – coordinator, CIEMAT (Spain), GRNet (Greece), CESNET (Czech Republic), UbuntuNet Alliance (Sub-Saharan Africa), RedCLARA (Latin America), IHEP (China), PSA (India).

Financed by the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) – Capacities, of the European Commission (Capacities – Research Infrastructures - INFRA-2010-3.3; FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2010-2) the CHAIN Project (Co-oordination & Harmonisation of Advanced e-INfrastructures) aims to coordinate and leverage recent efforts and results with a vision of a harmonised and optimised interaction model for e-Infrastructure and specifically Grid interfaces between Europe and the rest of the world. The project - that was launched in December 14, 2010, and will run till the end of 2012 - will elaborate a strategy and define the instruments in order to ensure coordination and interoperation of the European Grid Infrastructures with other external e-Infrastructures.

The CHAIN consortium, consisting of leading organisations in all the regions addressed by the project, will ensure global coverage, European leadership, and most efficient leveraging of results with respect to preceding regional initiatives. First, the project will define a coherent operational and organisational model, where a number of EU countries/regions will possibly act, in collaboration with EGI.eu, as bridges/gateways to other Regions/Continents. Further, the project will validate this model by supporting the extension and consolidation of worldwide virtual communities, which increasingly require distributed facilities (large instruments, distributed data and databases, digital repositories, etc.) across the regions for trans-continental research. Finally, the project will act as a worldwide policy-watch and coordination instrument, by exploring and proposing concrete steps for the coordination with other initiatives and studying the evolution of e-Infrastructures.

1. Define a strategy and a model for external collaboration, in close collaboration with EGI.eu, which will enable operational and organisation interfacing of EGI and external e-Infrastructures. This strategy will take into account current organisational models, while, regarding operational models, a peering model will be defined between Europe and other continents.
2. Validate this model, as a proof-of-principle, by supporting the extension and consolidation of worldwide Virtual Research Communities, which work on common areas (Bioinformatics, Chemistry, etc.) and/or increasingly require distributed facilities (e.g., large instruments, distributed data and databases, digital repositories, etc.) across the regions for trans-continental research. The limited support for such existing communities will be complemented by a coordinated activity of support for the international expansion to other prospective communities that have not exploited yet the full benefits of large intercontinental e-Infrastructures.
3. Propose and explore concrete steps forward towards the coordination with other projects and initiatives (e.g., EGI-InSPIRE, EUMEDGRID-Support, EUIndiaGrid2, LinkSCEEM, PRACE, Indian National Knowledge Network, GISELA, etc.).The project will act as a worldwide policy-watch and coordination instrument, by exploring and proposing concrete steps for the coordination with other initiatives and studying the evolution of eInfrastructures towards not only Grids and HPC but also Cloud Computing, Virtualisation, Desktop and Voluntary Computing and other trends that may emerge. This interaction with other e-Infrastructures will also imply a strong commitment to standards' adoption.