NA2 Meeting

1. NA2 Meeting Prague, 28 November 2007 Centrale Recherche S.A., Ecole Centrale Paris MAS Laboratory Contact: christian.saguez@ecp.fr EGEE and gLite are registered trademarks

2. CRSA-ECP JRU • CRSA (Centrale Recherche S.A.) • CRSA was created in 1986. It is a subsidiary of the Ecole Centrale Paris, a French academic institution (one of the top five French Engineer Schools). • It has an extensive research and development activity, and maintains strong industrial links, both through purely industrial projects and government-funded projects which are commonly oriented towards achieving industrially exploitable results. • ECP (Ecole Centrale Paris) • Since its founding, in 1829, the Ecole Centrale Paris has trained world class general engineers, i.e. chief executives, top managers, and technical experts. • The professionalism and dedication of its 1385 student-engineers, 180 permanent teaching staff and 1300 temporary staff constitute one of its main assets, together with its very high level training, and excellent research programs. NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007

3. MAS Laboratory • MAS (Mathematics Applied to Systems) Lab • Led by Professor Christian Saguez, the MAS laboratory now regroups nearly 80 people (teachers, researchers, phD students, engineers), and is linked to two teaching units within the Ecole Centrale Paris: Computer Science and Telecommunications and Applied Mathematics • The MAS Laboratory mainly deals with mathematical and computing tools and methods for the analysis, the design and the exploitation of complex systems. It is structured around projects which are regrouped under the following themes: • Scientific Computing and Visualisation • Information Processing, Data and Images • Information Systems, Grid and Cluster Architectures (middleware and application deployment) NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007

4. Role in EGEE2 • CRSA Core Partner, forms a JRU with ECP • Involved in NA4 • Involved in NA2 • TNA 2.2 Industrial and governemental relations • TNA 2.3 Production of promotional material • TNA 2.6 Events organisation and attendance • Reviews - Deliverables • Review of DNA2.3.1 (Dissemination, Outreach and Com. Plan) • Inputs to DNA2.3.2 (Dissemination, Outreach and Com. Report) • Review of DNA3.2 (Commercial Grid Training market survey) NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007

5. Governemental Relations • French entities • Meetings with Minefi (Ministry of Industry and Finance) and Ministry of Research and Innovation • Meetings with “Systematic” (Pole of Competitivity) • European Entities • Concertation Meeting in Brussels – 26/27 Sept 2007 • Meetings with members of the E.C. (V. Redding, U. Dahlsten…) • International: meetings in the USA, with the support of the French Embassy, Sept 2007 • Meetings with US DOE (Dpt Of Energy), NITRD (National Coordination Office for Networking and IT R&D), ANL (Argonne National Laboratory), University of Illinois, Texas Advanced Computing Centre, IBM Research Laboratory, National Science Foundation, DoD • Result: a contact made during this visit, Dr Frederica Darema (US National Science Foundation) came to the EGEE 07 Conference NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007

6. Industrial Relations • Links with Industry • Since its creation, ECP has maintained strong links with industry • Centrale Recherche was leading the (non-funded) Industry Forum during EGEE phase 1 • Various Industry Sectors Covered • Information Technologies, Telecommunications, Energy, Automotive, Aerospace, Biology and medical, Finance and Insurance, Retail and Logistics, Plasturgy, Multimedia, etc… • Type of Actions • Direct contacts with industry, for instance with IT managers and R&D directors in order to increase the number of industries confident with grid, • Establishing strong collaborations with national projects and European application projects, like for instance BEinGRID NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007

7. Events Attendance • EGEE ’06 conference in Geneva • Participation to Industry track sessions • Participation to CB meeting • “Aristote” Meeting on grids, March 2007 • OGF-20 - User Forum – May 2007 • Microsoft Seminar (on grids and virtualisation) – May 2007 • NA2 meetings (Budapest Dec ’06 - Geneva July ’07) • EGEE ’07 conference in Budapest • Participation to Industry track sessions • Participation to CB meeting NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007

8. Events Organisation • Organisation of two Industry Days: • April 27th, 2006, Paris: initiator of the first Industry Day • Success: 77 participants from 14 European countries • 2/3 from private companies, 1/3 from research/education • November 28th, 2007, Paris : Industry Day dedicated to the Finance sector, organised with Europlace, with the support of EGEE and BEinGRID (FP6 European project) • 18 speakers, 2 EGEE Business Associates (Excelian, Platform) • 80 participants, IT, bank, finance, insurance companies NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007

9. Conclusion • Interest in grid technologies shown from many industrial contacts • However, EGEE still often perceived as “research only” • Difficult to convince about gLite • Arguments against adoption such as: complexity for installation and administration (needs to have a dedicated gLite administrator), Unix/Linux only world (Windows is asked for by lots of companies), security, reliability, legacy issues… • CRSA produced a presentation to explain the gLite middleware NA2 Meeting, Prague, 28 November 2007