EMI and IGE both supply distributed computing technologies in Europe in order to provide European researchers with a pan-European computing infrastructure built from federated distributed resources and access to desktop grids. These projects support, maintain and develop middleware, and explore the application of cloud computing to grid infrastructures and scientific research. In particular, Globus, a grid middleware example, is a set of tools for constructing a grid, covering security measures, resource location and management, communications and so on. Many major grid projects use Globus, which is being developed by the Globus Alliance, a group involving Ian Foster's team at Argonne National Laboratory and Carl Kesselman's team at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In Europe, IGE is driving forward Globus developments according to European user requirements in close collaboration with the European Grid Initiative (EGI), Distributed Computing Infrastructure (DCI) projects, and Standard Development Organizations (SDOs).
The specific goals of the new EMI/IGE Collaboration defined by the MoU are to:
1) ensure the provision of dedicated support from Globus developers and maintainers,
2) ensure EMI internal plans are known to IGE for IGE's planning purposes,
3) deliver interoperable EMI and IGE solutions,
4) provide Globus and EMI platform requirements respectively through IGE and EMI releases.
Thanks to this MoU, user will be able to use a common infrastructure, benefitting from the computing edge technologies provided by both these Initiatives. So, just as the very old but true saying: "together we stand, divided we fall"…
