This project responds to the needs of experiments at CERN for long-term operations and to the request of the Nordic Council of Ministers for common development of e-infrastructure services. Maintaining the full range of services and developing new capabilities that Norwegian researchers need to stay internationally competitive requires continuing investments in competence, software and systems infrastructure. The cultural similarities, physical proximity of the five Nordic countries and previous collaborations at many levels means that the opportunities that grow out of sharing resources and pooling key competencies in the Nordic region are unique for forming and enhancing strategic partnerships. NeIC aims to reinforce the national eInfrastructures and, through Nordic collaboration, provide a platform for development of common agendas toward European initiatives of interest. Collaboration via NeIC provides additional channels for growth that can improve the overall European engagement of each of the Nordic countries. Norwegian researchers are given more open avenues for resources, advanced support, collaborations and scientific advancement.
Some examples of NeIC projects are Tryggve (sharing of sensitive bio- and medical data across the Nordic countries), Glenna (pooling competencies for providing cloud services for researchers), Dellingr (Nordic sharing and exchange of high-performance computing resources) and CodeRefinery (offering software development infrastructure and training for scientists). NeIC also runs the Nordic Tier 1 facility to meet needs from CERN for computing and storage of data from experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). No single Nordic country would have been large enough to offer a separate Tier-1 facility on its own, but by coming together, four Nordic countries could participate in the world?s largest computing grid to handle LHC data outputs.
This project responds to the needs of experiments at CERN for long-term operations and to the request of the Nordic Council of Ministers for common development of e-infrastructure services that will add value to national providers and their users. The project contains Norway's contribution to:
- Operation of the Nordic Tier-1 (six sites), including updates
- IT development and documented procedures to improve usability, interoperability, data protection and mobility for national systems for processing of sensitive data for research
- Assessment of the requirements and possibilities for future converged hybrid cloud infrastructure and establishment of a datacentric view on top of cloud resources
- Training Nordic research groups in code review and test-driven development software with development of state-of-the-art tools, assisting groups in migrating to collaborative industry-strength community solutions
- Development of technical, policy and administrative solutions for resource sharing and exchange between national e-infrastructure providers
All partners in this multinational consortium have agreed to seek proportional support from their national funding bodies