The German government will officially launch D-Grid, an
initiative to promote a grid-based communication framework for
scientific research in Germany, at the Global Grid Forum in
Berlin.
D-Grid has been under discussion since February 2003, as part of
a planned transformation of Germany's scientific research
establishment to one based on "e-science".
The aim of the e-science transformation is to use IT to enable
collaborative research by virtual, or geographically dispersed
teams, according to researchers involved.
The role of D-Grid in this is to create a durable grid computing
infrastructure; to develop grid computing middleware; to establish
information-sharing networks for e-Science, and to establish
e-Science pilot projects.
Research centres behind the D-Grid project include the
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, the Leibniz Rechenzentrum in Munich,
the Alfred Wegener Institut in Bremerhaven, and the Zuse Institute
Berlin. Companies including IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Cray have also
been involved.
Initial D-Grid participants will come from six scientific
fields: astrophysics and particle physics; computational science
and engineering; medicine and bio-IT; climate research and earth
sciences; high-performance computing; and science publishing.
Peter Sayer writes for IDG News Service