topic Hightech Strategy

eScience

Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) were developed by science for science. They are indispensable for access to worldwide knowledge and for cooperation between researchers. The excellent Gigabit Internet of the "Deutsches Forschungsnetz", however, is only the beginning of a development in the course of which networks and applications will merge into new types of working environments - referred to as GRID-computing - which is the keyword for the future Internet. The goal are supercomputers interconnected by high-speed networks that can be used commonly. One step toward this goal is the formation of the European supercomputer consortium PACE

Knowledge has become a production factor. As a result, access to information and the exchange of knowledge have become a crucial factor in competition. Today, the Internet constitutes the infrastructure for access to worldwide knowledge. This is true in particular for science. The technologies, processes and applications of the future will be studied, developed and tested with the Internet of the next generation. Major international companies have already begun to develop strategies for integrating and using these new developments.

Of crucial significance for this future-oriented development will be the design of open high- performance networks for education, science and research. At present, approaches towards a knowledge network are being developed which offer schools, universities, research institutions, companies and administrations individual processes and services for organizing and developing their knowledge.

Top performance in computers and networks

Germany has an excellent infrastructure for scientific computing compared to European competitors. 17 of the top 500 supercomputers worldwide are located in Germany. The top ranking supercomputer - second in Europe, eigth on the top 500 list worldwide - at the time being is located at the Forschungszentrum Jülich and went operational in June 2006. In 2007, the machine will be displaced by the supercomputer of the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum (LRZ) in Garching near Munich. The LRZ started on 21. Juli 2006 with a configuration reaching rank 13 worldwide. In the final configuration, the computer will have doubled its capacity.  Inititated by BMBF, the scince ministries of the Länder Baden-Württemberg, Bayern und Nordrhein-Westfalen have reached the agreement to form a consortium of the three German supercomputer installations at Jülich, München/Garching and Stuttgart. The Centers founded the Gauß-Center for Supercomputing on 13. April 2007. The centers are interconnected by the Ex@Grid high-speed network supported by BMBF.

European computer netzwork PACE

The Gauß-Center for Supercomputing is the basis of the German participation in the European activities towards a distributed European supercomputer consortium. This initiative of 11 European countries has led to an MoU that was signed in Berlin on 17th of April 2007. The goal is to form the "Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe" (PACE) consortium. PACE wants to open up the access to supercomputer ressources to scientists throughout Europe. The consortium will be funded through the investments of the participating countries for their respective supercomputer sites.

From science networks to GRID computing

Germany has one of the best science networks worldwide. We want to further increase the attractiveness of research in Germany by means of an innovative infrastructure for distributed, cooperative scientific work in communication networks and a highly efficient information supply. This means that relevant scientific information is processed and made available by adequate access to information and a Digital Library. The objective is to optimize knowledge transfer in its role as driving force for innovations.

The second focus is GRID computing and its technological as well as economic challenges, in particular. The main issue is to open the state-financed and pioneering research infrastructure for the enormous application potential of grid technology by means of establishing early links to specific business models of partners in industry. High-performance networks - such as the Gigabit Knowledge Network of the Deutsches Forschungsnetz (DFN) - will in future evolve into comprehensive scientific working environments. They will support the entire research process, from  the operation of measuring devices in laboratories which collaborate internationally and the management of research data to the documentation and publication of the results. In order to make the utilization of such applications easy and unbureaucratic in the future, it will be necessary to develop new concepts for networking data stores, computers and networks - so-called GRID solutions. Opportunities are arising in particular in the areas of digitalization of services and digital manufacturing/digital factory, in order to facilitate new services, flexibilize and speed up production cycles and thus stimulate growth forces in these markets, which have a dynamic growth potential.

Goals

Revolutionary changes can be expected as a result of new GRID-based, collaborative and networked forms of international scientific collaboration. The new challenge consists in creating next-generation information systems which are application and use- oriented. Suitable IT and information infrastructures are a prerequisite for implementing new forms of scientific work in self-organizing structures.

The aim is to develop virtual knowledge environments in which users can access comprehensive databanks, visualizations and scientific information of all kinds in a dynamic manner. This means that in Germany, too, the development of a supply of scientific information is confronted with fundamental challenges. The rapid transfer of research results and the processing and availability of relevant scientific information are important factors accelerating the transfer of knowledge and thus driving innovations. In addition to the conventional publication of scientific results in the form of a product, the entire process of generating, processing, disseminating and archiving knowledge will change in a fundamental way. The new dynamic forms of scientific work require innovative information structures and services for scientific communication, information and publication.

Guiding principles for an eScience initiative

In Germany, too, a joint initiative is required for developing GRID solutions into comprehensive approaches to a science enhanced by new digital working possibilities - now described internationally as eScience. The following four points are of importance for realizing this eScience initiative:

• Diversity and synergy: No single working environment can meet the requirements of all disciplines in the same way. But likewise it does not make sense to continue investing in custom-made developments. What is therefore necessary is a "toolbox" with which to integrate eScience applications for the different cultures of individual disciplines and institutes and whose common technical structure forms the basis for new collaborations.
• Standards and practice: Internationally, eScience is a dynamic field. Comprehensive strategies, which are elaborated in time-consuming processes, are therefore doomed to fail. Instead it is necessary, from the user's point of view, to tackle concrete developments whose results can then be turned into standards.
• Services: New technologies such as the GRID will only develop their full effect if they are openly accessible, even after the conclusion of individual projects. Such concepts must therefore focus on services for science. For this to happen, we must redefine the future role of computing centres, libraries and research networks in national and international collaborative research efforts.
• Networking between research organizations and between science and industry: Exchanges between scientific disciplines and between science and industry are underdeveloped in Germany. The concepts for eScience and GRID in particular offer approaches for new collaborations, as well as for the development of new science and research-related processes.
  

The next steps

Together with science and industry, the German Federal Government is preparing an eScience initiative which aims to ensure internationally competitive working opportunities for German science in the future too.

At the initiative of the Max Planck Society, the leading German science organizations have jointly drawn up and signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. The strategy paper of D-GRID is a proposal for a German eScience initiative developed by the scientific community itself.

The German science organizations should further develop this approach towards a joint German eScience initiative. BMBF support for relevant research activities will only make sense if the scientific community itself participates in such an initiative with its own concepts and resources.