One down two to go
I'm pleased (and relieved!) to say that it went well with Mike Jones from the University of Manchester giving a presentation on "Shibboleth Access to Resources on the NGS". We had 28 individuals join us on Evo from all over the world including Russia, Italy, USA and Switzerland. It was good to see that our seminar was of interest to people internationally as well.
The next seminar will take place on Wednesday 8th Feb at 10.30am (GMT) and will be looking at the Certificate Wizard which makes it easier for users to manage their certificates. If you would like to take part in the seminar either by Access Grid or Evo then please see the event listing on our website. You can also RSVP on our Facebook event page.
The seminars have been recorded and it is our aim to have these recordings available on the NGS website at the end of the seminar series.
FP7 project SCI-BUS searches for subcontractors
The SCI-BUS (Scientific gateway Based User Support) project is looking for 6 subcontractors. The subcontractors are expected to bring in new user communities preferably with an application area and segment of community which is not yet covered by any project consortium member. The task of subcontractors will be to develop their application-specific gateways and to contribute to the dissemination of the SCI-BUS technology through their user communities.
Cloudscape IV - Advances in Interoperability and Cloud Computing Standards
http://www.sienainitiative.eu/Pages/SelectedDocument.aspx?id_documento=c...
cloudsv2.JPGCloudscape IV focuses strongly on interoperability and portability issues with the involvement of key Standard Development Organizations as part of a call for action to strengthen international cooperation to address global challenges. Cloudscape IV also shines the spotlight on the reusable assets of European Distributed Computing Infrastructures and the need to foster synergies beyond the typical research infrastructure landscape.
Cloudscape IV - Advances in Interoperability and Cloud Computing Standards
http://www.sienainitiative.eu/Pages/SelectedDocument.aspx?id_documento=c...
cloudsv2.JPGCloudscape IV focuses strongly on interoperability and portability issues with the involvement of key Standard Development Organizations as part of a call for action to strengthen international cooperation to address global challenges. Cloudscape IV also shines the spotlight on the reusable assets of European Distributed Computing Infrastructures and the need to foster synergies beyond the typical research infrastructure landscape.
Interested in accessing and managing grid resources?
The NGS is hosting a short but sweet seminar series starting next Wednesday (1st Feb). There will be 3 seminars over the 3 weeks each lasting approximately 30 minutes and the best thing about them is that you can join in no matter where you are - all you need is the internet!
We wanted to make the seminars as open to everyone as we possibly could and, after some deliberation, we decided to use the Evo technology. This is free for everyone to use - all you have to do is to register and I recommend doing this at least the day before. This isn't anything to do with Evo's registration process more that it took several hours for my university email system to allow my confirmation email through...
So what are the topics that we will be discussing?
1st February - Shibboleth Access to Resources on the NGS – Mike Jones, NGS, University of Manchester
This talk will demonstrate how it is possible to access and use NGS resources using institutional login credentials (via the UK Access Management Federation). It will describe how the UK's two main e-Science authentication systems are combined to form an easy to use yet robust identity management environment. It will discuss how this mechanism links together with system, project and Virtual Organisation (VO) registration procedures.
8th February - Certificate Management in the UK - John Kewley, NGS, STFC Daresbury Laboratory
The NGS helpdesk receives many tickets relating to certificates (and certificate renewal in particular): largely due to browser incompatibilities. In order to tackle this problem, the NGS has devised CertWizard which is a browser-independent certificate tool. The presentation will give an introduction to the UK e-Science CA, which has issued over 30,000 certificates, and its associated software and interfaces, including CertWizard.
It will show how modernisations are being made at various stages of the certificate lifecycle, making it easier than ever for users to manage their e-Science Certificate.
15th February - Moonshot - next generation federated identity - Josh Howlett, JANET
Federated identity yields significant benefits for users and services by increasing the usability of services, reducing identity management costs and improving regulatory compliance.
A number of different technical strategies for federating identity have emerged during the past decade, with differing levels of success. These technologies address different types of use case, resulting in significant complexity for both users, services and trust infrastructure providers.
This complexity impedes the adoption of services and increasing operational costs. Moreover, there are many use cases where these technologies do not provide a solution.
Project Moonshot is an ambitious Janet-led initiative, building on existing deployed technologies, that aim to develop a single unified and standardised approach that satisfies all of the authentication and authorisation requirements of the education & research community. Much of the technology has now been implemented, and is now being tested within the Janet Moonshot Technology Pilot.
This presentation will provide an overview of some of the motivating use cases for Moonshot and an overview of the technology and the implementation.
Full details of how to join the seminars are available on the NGS website event page but if you have any queries then please contact the helpdesk and we will do our utmost to help you join in.
Job advert - grid position available
This major research programme, funded by Cancer Research UK, brings together expertise from three departments in the University of Cambridge: Oncology, Engineering, and Physics, also within the medical physics, radiotherapy and clinical groups in Addenbrooke's Hospital.
CFP: Free Workshop on Science Applications and Infrastructure in Clouds and Grids
The purpose of this workshop is to investigate cloud and grid framework software efforts and applications in greater detail, exploring ways in which cloud resources are being used to complement or supplement resources from traditional grids, supercomputing, and local cluster resources for science.
Prospective participants are invited to submit brief abstracts and to request special topics for consideration if so inclined. Topics include:
Workshop on Science Applications and Infrastructure in Clouds and Grids
The "Science Applications and Infrastructure in Clouds and Grids" workshop is a follow-on to our two previous workshops on High Performance Applications of Cloud and Grid Tools held in April, 2011 and Science Agency Uses of Clouds and Grids held July, 2011.
It's that time of year again...
I received confirmation today that I'll be giving a paper at the forthcoming EGI Community Forum on our champions networks. I'll be talking about both our Campus and Community champion networks and how we work with each other to promote e-infrastructure in the UK. Several other NGS staff have also had papers accepted on topics including "Linking Authenticating and Authorising Infrastructures in the UK NGI (SARoNGS)" (Mike Jones) and "Tweaking the Certificate Lifecycle for the UK eScience CA" (John Kewley).
Also in my inbox this week was an announcement from the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) announcing that registration for their Collaboration Workshop 2012 (CW) is now open. This is on of my favourite events as, unlike most conferences, you don't sit passively listening. The CW consists of breakout groups where you discuss topics submitted by the attendees and there's always one of interest to me in every session. After the discussion a member of the break out group volunteers to report back to the CW as a whole. This means that you get to hear what all the other break out groups were talking about and you can still feedback on their outcomes as well.
It's a really lively meeting and you leave after 2 days feeling tired but feeling that you've achieved something worthwhile! It's also a great place for networking with new people as there are researchers from a wide variety of research areas, IT people, community support people and people like myself who represent national initiatives. To see some of the topics already suggested for discussion visit the event website.
SSI Collaborations Workshop 2012 - registration now open!
The Collaborations Workshop gets researchers and software developers working together to solve research problems. If you’re a researcher who wants to make more of software, or a developer who wants to work with researchers, the workshop is the perfect opportunity to meet new collaborators. The Collaborations Workshop will be held on 21-22 March at Queen’s College, Oxford and registration is now open. For more information, visit the Collaborations Workshop website.
NGS Seminar Series February 2012
The NGS will be hosting a short online seminar series at the beginning of February highlighting the recent developments in the UK for accessing and managing grid resources. The seminars are aimed at interested parties from the grid community and further afield who are interested in access management. The seminars will be broadcast online on Wednesday mornings at 10.30am (GMT) and will last for 30mins with an opportunity for questions. They will also be recorded and be available after the event.
NGS Seminar: Moonshot - next generation federated identity
Federated identity yields significant benefits for users and services by increasing the usability of services, reducing identity management costs and improving regulatory compliance.
A number of different technical strategies for federating identity have emerged during the past decade, with differing levels of success. These technologies address different types of use case, resulting in significant complexity for both users, services and trust infrastructure providers.
NGS Seminar: Certificate Management in the UK
The National Grid Service (NGS) helpdesk receives many tickets relating to certificates (and certificate renewal in particular): largely due to browser incompatibilities. In order to tackle this problem, the NGS has devised CertWizard which is a browser-independent certificate tool.
NGS Seminar: Shibboleth Access to Resources on the NGS
This talk will demonstrate how it is possible to access and use NGS resources using institutional login credentials (via the UK Access Management Federation).
It will describe how the UK's two main e-Science authentication systems are combined to form an easy to use yet robust identity management environment. It will discuss how this mechanism links together with system, project and Virtual Organisation (VO) registration procedures.
International Symposium on Grids & Clouds (ISGC) 2012
http://event.twgrid.org/isgc2012/
taipeiv1.jpgTopics of Interest
Applications and results from the Virtual Research Communities and Industry:
1. High Energy Physics
2. Biomedicine and Life Sciences
3. Earth Science, Environmental Changes and Natural Disaster Mitigation
4. Humanities and Social Sciences
Activity to enable the provisioning of a Resource Infrastructure:
5. Operation and Management
6. Middleware and Interoperability
7. Security and Networking
8. Infrastructure clouds and Virtualisation
9. Business Models and Sustainability
International Symposium on Grids & Clouds (ISGC) 2012
Online registration is now open for the International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2012 which will be held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, from 26 February to 2 March 2012, with co-located events and workshops. The conference is hosted by the Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre (ASGC), Taipei, Taiwan. To enjoy the early bird discount rate, please register before 20 January, 2012!
Just incase you missed it....
This edition featured articles on -
- the adoption of Globus Online by the NGS
- NGS involvement in the EGI Federated Cloud Task Force and the benefits for NGS users
- NGS user case study - Scalable Road Traffic Monitoring using Grid Computing
- ...and more!
Data-Intensive Computing in Biology
https://eventbooking.stfc.ac.uk/news-events/data-intensive-computing-in-...
cecamdatalogo.jpgA major theme of modern biology is the quantity and wealth of data available: the data deluge. Computational biologists need to be able to handle very large datasets, and to extract useful information and derive knowledge. Example applications include sequencing, metagenomics, proteomics, imaging and neuroscience.
Data-Intensive Computing in Biology
https://eventbooking.stfc.ac.uk/news-events/data-intensive-computing-in-...
cecamdatalogo.jpgA major theme of modern biology is the quantity and wealth of data available: the data deluge. Computational biologists need to be able to handle very large datasets, and to extract useful information and derive knowledge. Example applications include sequencing, metagenomics, proteomics, imaging and neuroscience.
Methods in Molecular Simulation Summer School 2012
The summer school will take place at Cardiff University, July 22 - July 31 2012. Organised by CCP5 and sponsored by the CECAM organisation, this School is intended for newcomers to the science of molecular simulation and will provide a comprehensive introduction to the methodology, practical sessions on computational methods and examples of the power and versatility of simulation methods.
