The new institute brings together more than fifteen CNRS laboratories from four scientific departments and two national institutes. The Institut des Grilles (Grids Institute) will be consolidating the existing grid production infrastructures to reinforce research on the topic and increase synergy between the various players. Generally speaking, the action will make extremely powerful computing means available to different scientific communities. Computing grids have made major progress and attained advanced maturity over the past years.
For instance the EGEE grid is a world production infrastructure, processing several millions of jobs each month, 24/7, for thousands of users in more than ten scientific fields. Research activities in computer sciences on the grids are growing rapidly, in terms of conceptual and operational aspects with a world-unique tool, the dedicated GRID5000. CNRS is also lead partner of the DEISA program dealing with supercomputer grids.
Accordingly, the CNRS decided to set up a Grids Institute that will be used as a contact point for its partners, with a focus on its European partners, for all the grid projects in the field. In agreement with the other participating organizations and departments, the purpose of the facility is to be the backbone of the French national contribution to international projects. The new Institute will also be in charge of scientific facilitation for user communities and of new user integration.
