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European Space Agency

Press Release

SpaceGrid study ends on an optimistic note

28 May 2003
 
Almost two years have gone by since ESA set up the SpaceGrid study to
see how the emerging use of the electronic grid could increase and
improve the use of space applications. The study is now complete and
last week representatives of industry and academia met to discuss the
outcome. 
 

So what is the Grid?
 
To paraphrase Ian Foster, an early mentor of grid computing for
research, "Grid computing is the large-scale integration of computer
systems, via high-speed networks, to provide on-demand access to
data-crunching capabilities not available to one individual or group
of machines".

For instance, young value-added companies or private individuals with
limited computer capacity can select heavy files, such as Earth
observation images and data, and then give instructions for these to
be processed in order to receive crop yield estimates. Once the
processing is complete, the relatively 'light' files with the results
can be sent to their computer for further use. The benefits - in
terms of time, money and resources - are clear. 

Other benefits include the possibility of setting up 'virtual
organisations' for research and study; that is, a group of scientists
and technicians can work in different organisations in different
countries but share information and data. 


Where's the Grid going?
 
Participants at the workshop do not need to be convinced about the
benefits of the Grid. As representatives of academia, space
institutes, the information and space industries, and the European
Commission, they all have an active interest in grid projects.

The general consensus among participants is that the Grid - seen as
the next step up from the internet and the world wide web - will
bring many benefits to both research and industry. To quote Giacomo
Cavallo, head of the ESA Grid Interest Group "Basically the Grid is
the only evolutionary path we have in front of us beyond Internet,
and we had better follow it". However, as Cavallo pointed out at the
workshop "we are still at the beginning of Grid technology". 

The SpaceGrid study show that a number of concerns need to be
addressed before the Grid comes 'of age', concerns echoed by many of
the participants in their presentations. These can be summed up as
the need for: 

	* standardisation of grid language and codes 
    * high performing middleware - the Grid term for software
	* further research into grid systems 
    * improved Grid interoperability and interoperability with other
      accessible web services
    * improved network connection speed across data centres,
      computing facilities and users
    * a safe grid environment, encompassing grid-compatible firewalls
      and security
	* a legal framework enabling the exploitation of Grid resources 
	* guaranteed quality of services 
	* education and outreach

According to Max Lemke of the European Commission, other challenges
facing the whole of the Grid community are "the need to move from
research applications to applications for industry and business, to
work with industry and technology providers, to think ahead to see
what technology will be needed to get added value for industry and to
have prototypes to check the feasibility of developments". 
 
As Wyn Cudlip of QinetiQ, a leading UK science consultancy company,
who represented the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites pointed
out at the workshop: "scientific institutes are research oriented and
happy to use systems in the development stage, industry however is
more reluctant to make a big investment unless they can clearly see
the advantages and a guaranteed return". 

Space related applications, as presented by the various contributors
at the workshop, represent interesting challenges for the utilisation
and further development of Grid-related technologies. These
applications should be considered as very good cases for further
funding at European level.
 
 
What next for ESA
 
Now the study has been completed, ESA's next step is to pass from the
study phase to implementation of real applications in domains for
which the SpaceGrid study has demonstrated that the Grid could be
better exploited, namely Earth observation, solar science,
teletesting, and telemonitoring for spacecraft engineering and
concurrent design. 

In Europe, Earth observation and solar science communities are good
examples of multi-institutional or even multi-enterprise endeavours.
In addition, their computing, archiving and also human resources, in
the case of Earth observation ground segments, are geographically
distributed. The demand for a better approach to distributed resource
exploitation and application management is therefore high.

The objective of the proposed follow-on work is to demonstrate that
Open Grid Service Infrastructure (OGSI) technology can provide the
basis for a distributed middleware for Earth observation and solar
science by distributing access to metadata, catalogues, inventories
and archival data, and providing on demand data processing via
distributed services.

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