GISELA

To implement a sustainability model for the Latin American Grid Initiative (LGI) based on the National Grid Initiatives (NGI) or on the Equivalent Domestic Grid Structures (EDGS), in association with RedCLARA, Latin American NRENs, in collaboration with the European Grid Initiative (EGI); to provide Virtual Research Communities (VRCs) with an e-Infrastructure and services for related applications required to improve the effectiveness of their research.

CIEMAT (Spain), CEDIA (Ecuador), CIDETYS (Panama), CLARA (America Latin), CNRS (France), CUBAENERGIA (Cuba), CUDI (Mexico), HLP (France), INFN (Italy), INNOVA-T (Argentina), RAAP (Poland), REUNA (Chile), UdelaR (Uruguay), UFCG (Brazil) , UFRJ (Brazil), ULA (Venezuela), UNAM (Mexico), UNIANDES (Colombia), UDP (Portugal).

Financed by the 7th Framework Programme – Capacities, of the European Commission (FP7 INFRA-2010-2 call - Topic INFRA-2010-1.2.3: Virtual Research Communities), the GISELA Project (Grid Initiatives for e-Science virtual communities in Europe and Latin America) aims at:

• Implementing the Latin American Grid Initiative (LGI) sustainability model rooted on National Grid Initiatives (NGI) or Equivalent Domestic Grid Structures (EDGS), in association with CLARA, Latin American NRENs (National Research and Education Networks) and collaborating with the European Grid Initiative (EGI);
• Providing Virtual Research Communities (VRCs) with the e-Infrastructure and Application-related Services required to improve the effectiveness of their research.

The Project encompasses 19 Partners from 15 countries in Europe and Latin America: CIEMAT (Spain), CEDIA (Ecuador), CIDETYS (Panama), CLARA (Latin America), CNRS (France), CUBAENERGIA (Cuba), CUDI (Mexico), HLP (France), INFN (Italy), INNOVA-T (Argentina), RAAP (Poland), REUNA (Chile), UdelaR (Uruguay), UFCG (Brazil) , UFRJ (Brazil), ULA (Venezuela), UNAM (Mexico), UNIANDES (Colombia), UDP (Portugal).

Starting its operation in September 1st 2010 –with a lifetime defined in 24 months- GISELA aims at ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Latin American component of its e-Infrastructure. This translates into the following sub-objectives:

• Establish a powerful e-Infrastructure facility built on the EELA-2 (http://www.eu-eela.eu/ ) Infrastructure legacy;
• Work out and implement a sustainability model for the e-Infrastructure.

In parallel, the Project supports Virtual Research Communities, addressing both:

• Current EELA-2 small User Communities;
• Larger VRCs from Earth, Life Sciences, HEP, etc.

The objectives aforementioned are pursued following strategic lines of action.

• GISELA establishes a self-sustainable Grid infrastructure from the one inherited from EELA-2, providing and supporting the basic (CORE) operation services. The Project affords network support by coordinating the internal networking related tasks and developing inter-operation agreements to consolidate the relationship with GÉANT2, CLARA, the NRENs and the NGIs, in Europe and Latin America;
• GISELA works out, with CLARA, the model of sustainability for the e-Infrastructure best adapted to the CLARA and LA NRENs environment;
• Under the GISELA supervision, CLARA identifies the NREN(s) that will be in charge of the Operation and Support of the e-Infrastructure, applying a business plan. GISELA intends to handover them the e-Infrastructure Operation and Support during the last Project semester.