Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid
Who we are: The Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid (SMSCG) is a project funded under the AAA/SWITCH program and a Working Group of the Swiss National Grid Association (SwiNG). The project which started in May 2008 and ends the 30th of April 2013 with the termination of the AAA/SWITCH program has established computational services for user communities of various scientific domains. In the current phase of the project we are preparing a transition of the SMSCG services to the follow up project called Swiss Academic Compute Cloud which starts in May 2013 and which is bridging the time until the CRUS program ("Information scientifique: accès, traitement et sauvegarde") starts. Our computational services and our support are long-term and user community centric.
Primary goal:
to provide computational resources to solve scientific computationally intensive problems
Key Properties:
- multi-disciplinary and user driven: we support applications in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, avalanche research, and cryptography.
Users from other sciences are encouraged to participate. - support for users and applications: provide simple and fast Grid access and assist user groups in porting and running their applications.
- integrated user management: leverage user registration, authentication and authorization using a national AAI infrastructure (SWITCHaai).
- middleware based: we use the Nordugrid ARC with the LFC support (basic data management) and components for authentication and authorization (SLCS, VOMS). We started integrating virtualization and cloud technologies in our portfolio since 2011.
- policy based: by the end of the project the Grid will reach operational stage, which is governed by policies between resource providers and user communities.
- faster cooperation between IT infrastructure providers and computational scientists.
- security: the project seeks active cooperation with the CERT teams of the Swiss higher education sector.
- sustainability: plan to extend the project even after the current life time
Project Partners: several institutions of the Swiss higher education sector.