ACADEMIA

Citizens and companies in the Dutch city of Almere can give science a helping hand by donating unused computing time: Martine Visser, from the City Council of Almere, officially inaugurated AlmereGrid, the first cityGrid in the world. AlmereGrid allows citizens, companies and other organisations to donate otherwise unused computing time to science. Researcher Danielle Posthuma from the Free University of Amsterdam, showed how all this computer power could be used for analysing data on a large number of twins. This research could help us to gain better understanding of human behaviour. If Almere would donate computing time at a very large scale, also other research, for instance medical research, could benefit. AlmereGrid focuses on making it easy for everyone to participate, not only the computer literate. Computing jobs that would otherwise take days or months on a single computer, can be divided by AlmereGrid in many small jobs. Each of these small jobs can be run on a different computer in Almere. The results are then sent back to the AlmereGrid exchange and combined to a single result. Scientific research can get back their answers much faster in this way. A typical computing job could take for instance 85 days on a single, fast PC in a university. If AlmereGrid would have a 1.000 participating PC’s, the same result would be available after two hours – much faster. A conservative estimate shows at least 60.000 computers are located in residential areas of Almere. If a large part would participate, Almere would be one of the largest (virtual) computers in the world. However, rather than calling that a “computer”, one usually addresses this as a computing Grid. AlmereGrid is unique in being the first operational cityGrid in the world. Security is paramount for a Grid such as AlmereGrid. A person or organisation donating computing time wants to be absolutely sure nothing happens with his computing system. That is why AlmereGrid has out in place an extensive set of secutriy measures. AlmereGrid has also had the fully operational Grid in testphase for over a year, to be sure the Grid is reliable and secure. AlmereGrid is in contact with a number of researchers at different universities in the Netherlands. Almeerders can choose to which research they want to donate their unused computing time. After the official opening today, every citizen, company and organisation can donate their computing capacity to science. They can register through the website http://AlmereGrid.nl. A large number of societal engaged organisations support the Stichting AlmereGrid (Foundation AlmereGrid) in realizing the Grid. ICT specialists of the Rabobank, provided technical support. SARA provides server housing and ported applications to AlmereGrid. SARA is experienced in rolling out large scale scientific Grids. Oracle provides software licenses to their Oracle 10G and other software and participated with experienced consultants. IBM contributed its large experience in Grids, both at enterprises and Internet based Grids. NWO/NCF (Dutch National Science Organisation) monitors the scientific quality. Others that contribute include Dell, Intel, ALCA Systems BV, Engage Technology BV, LogicaCMG, Foundry Networks and Genias Benelux.