Exceptional Scientific Calculations

The primary goal of the infrastructure is to support high-quality scientific research; occasionally, that research requires calculations that significantly exceed the scale of resources available to a Virtual Organization (VO). In general, resource providers are very willing to contribute to these exceptional scientific calculations if

1. They are limited to a fixed time (few months) and
2. Provide innovative scientific results.

Data Challenges

• When planning a data challenge, its scientific coordinator must send a message with the following information to Frederic Schaer (frederic.schaer {at} cea.fr), manager of the VO Managers' Group. The message should be sent at least 3 months prior to the start of the data challenge.
  • Name of the researcher(s).
  • Registered VO that will host the calculation.
  • Scientific discipline.
  • Brief (1 page) description of the calculation and reasons why the calculation is innovative.
  • Amount of resources that are needed for the calculation.
  • Time period(s) in which the calculation will be run.
• The NA4 Steering Committee will evaluate the proposal and recommend those that will provide "flagship" scientific results.
• For recommended requests, Frederic Schaer will open a GGUS ticket with the request and assign it to the Resource Allocation Group (RAG). You will be in copy of this request so that you can follow the progress.
• The RAG will coordinate the resource request.
• At the end of the calculation, the researcher is expected to prepare a short, written summary of the results and his/her experiences with the EGEE grid infrastructure. Ideally, this work should be presented at an EGEE User Forum.

Dissemination of Procedure

Audience: Users with large computational needs.

Contacts for these types of calculations come through the strategic cluster representatives and through the VO managers. The strategic cluster representatives and VO managers will periodically be reminded of this procedure by the NA4 activity manager and the VO Support team leader, respectively.

-- CharlesLoomis - 15 Jul 2008