by Stephan Springstubbe and Wolfgang Ziegler
The CoreGRID Summer School 2006 (CSS'06) took place in Bonn, Germany from 24 to 28 July. Organising the yearly summer school, CoreGRID - The European Research Network on Foundations, Software Infrastructures and Applications for large-scale distributed GRID and Peer-to-Peer Technologies - aims at providing the possibility of advanced training to students and researchers in a trend-setting domain of computer science, which is currently under-represented in the curricula of universities. CoreGRID summer schools are organised by a different CoreGRID partner each year and take place in distinct European cities.
CSS'06 was organised by the Department of Bioinformatics of the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI and hosted by the Bonn-Aachen International Centre for Information Technology (B-IT). The B-IT generously supported the event, providing their whole infrastructure.
The 80 participants included 55 students and researchers from 12 countries and 25 international experts from eight countries, with approximately two out of three of the participants coming from institutions involved in CoreGRID. They worked on 35 course units focusing on Grid Resource Management, Scheduling and Monitoring, Grid Application in Life Sciences and Industry, as well as Future Generation Grids. These course units also included the results of the most important European Grid projects and two half-day hands-on exercises. CSS'06 was financially supported by IBM and SUN, allowing it to maintain a registration fee appropriate for students, who indicated on their evaluation forms that they were very satisfied with the event.
CSS'06 will have a bearing on several levels, the most important being the curriculum of the B-IT, the further integration of the European Grid research and development, the transfer of knowledge to their home institutions via the students and researchers and, most importantly, the growing support for a broader use of Grid technologies.
For the B-IT the CSS'06 marks the launch of a Grid curriculum. For the first time, starting with the winter semester 2006/07, a course will be offered which is designed as an introduction to Grid technologies and applications. For the following semesters more in-depth courses are planned, in particular addressing the application of Grid technology in the Life Sciences. Researchers of the B-IT expect that Grid technologies will help satisfy the enormous demand for computing power, data and specific services in the Life Sciences and, for example, the pharmaceutical industry, which until now may only be covered using supercomputers. Hence, this aspect of student training has a strategic impact and helps in assuring competitive advantages.
Experience gained during this summer school and from the previous CSS point to the creation of initial networks between participants from different European institutions and the lecturers. Participants and lecturers normally continue maintaining these networks after the event, thus advancing the integration of the European Grid research and development which is - together with excellence - the main objective of CoreGRID.
In the home institutions of the participants, the awareness of research and development around Grid technologies is increasing through the imminent transfer of knowledge by the participants.
Finally, the result of the training of scientists and students across the three levels mentioned helps to support the broader use of Grid technologies in different research disciplines and industry in the future.
The CoreGRID Network of Excellence is administrated by ERCIM.
Links:
CoreGRID: http://www.coregrid.net
2006 Summer School: http://www.coregrid.net/mambo/content/view/231/221/
Please contact:
Stephan Springstubbe, Fraunhofer-Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI)
Tel: +49 2241 14 2337
E-mail: stephan.springstubbe
scai.fraunhofer.de
