25/09/2007 5:25 am - Justinmind

Justinmind joins EC-GIN (Europe-China Grid InterNetworking) project, to apply results to its Factory Server product. Europe-China Grid InterNetworking: innovative work promising a more efficient Grid.

Europe and China join their forces in research activities for Grid computing infrastructure optimizations, namely the network layer. EC-GIN (Europe-China Grid InterNetworking, http://www.ec-gin.eu) is one of the very first research projects co-founded by the E.U. under the Framework Programme 6 (FP6) which puts Europe and China together to work on improving the network ability to better support Grid applications and services.

The Internet communication infrastructure (the so-called TCP/IP protocol stack) is designed for broad use; as such, it does not take the specific characteristics of Grid applications into account. This one-size-fits-all approach works for a number of application domains, however, it is far from being optimal. Thus, it cannot be as efficient as customized solutions. While the Grid and its services are slowly emerging, its network infrastructure is still in its infancy.

The EC-GIN project, based on a number of properties that make Grids unique from the network perspective, aims at developing a tailored network technology in dedicated support of Grid applications. These technical solutions will be supplemented with a secure and incentive-based Grid Services network traffic management system, which will balance the conflicting performance demand and the economic use of resources in the network and within the Grid.

Technically, EC-GIN will make Grids work, operate, and communicate better. By appropriately utilizing the underlying network, Grid resources in general will be used more efficiently and amplify the impact of Grid computing on the society and economy of Europe and China.

The duration of the project is 36 months (November 2006 - October 2009) and all partners involved are listed below:

Universität Innsbruck, UIBK, Austria
University of Zürich, UniZH, Switzerland
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique, INRIA, France
Lancaster University, ULANC, U.K.
Justinmind, JIM, Spain
EXIS IT, Greece
University of Surrey, UniS, U.K.
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, BUPT, China
Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, ISCAS, China
China Telecommunication Technology Labs, CTTL, China
China Mobile Group Design Institute Co., Ltd, CMDI, China