Astrophysics in the EGEE Grid

摘要

EGEE, the most important European Grid Infrastructure funded by the EU Commission, is now in the process of submitting a proposal within the EU 7th Framework Programme to start the third phase (EGEE-III) of the project. The Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A) Community has proven to be particularly attractive for EGEE, since its typical applications are considered strategic, i.e. challenging enough to be chosen as good validators of the EGEE Grid infrastructure. Conversely, a "call for astrophysical applications" launched in the past months gathered many responses from groups of astronomers interested in contributing applications to be gridified. This positive answer is a further demonstration that the community of astronomers who look at the Grid as the right technology for many aspects of their everyday work is rapidly growing. In the 2008-2009 framework, the plan is to support the gridification of selected astrophysical applications using EU funds. In the meantime, a consistent development activity on the Grid middleware is being carried out by a number of research groups of the A&A Community. The goal is to enhance the capabilities of the current Grids to make them able to fully meet the requirements of typical MLA applications and also of other disciplines, and to bridge the Grid and the Virtual Observatory. Both EGEE and the A&A Community, therefore, can mutually benefit of a stronger synergy.