Results of the working meeting GLORIAD Moscow 2006

The representatives of Canada, China, Korea, Netherlands, Russia, USA, as well as science and education (S & E) network of Northern Countries NORDUnet participated in a working meeting held in Moscow on July 4-6, 2006. The aim of the meeting was to further promote international project GLORIAD which focused on creation of a global high-speed information and telecommunication system of ring topology for science and education.

The meeting was arranged by the Russian research centre 'Kurchatov institute' and Russian institute for public networks (RIPN), which represent Russia in the GLORIAD project.

The GLORIAD project is supported by the Ministry of science and education of the Russian Federation, NSF (National Science Foundation) - a US government agency, engaged in advancement of science and education, the Chinese Academy of Science, the Ministry of science and technology of Korea, Canadian non-profit association CANARIE, the national S & E network of Netherlands SURFnet, as well as a number of other organizations representing countries which participate in the project.

The President of the Russian research centre 'Kurchatov institute' Academician E.P.Velikhov, who opened the meeting, pointed out, that the GLORIAD project is focused on creating a cooperative segment of the Internet, aimed at transferring huge amounts of scientific and educational information.

According to E.P.Velikhov, the progress in the field of high-performance research networks is the result of scientific work in the field of high-energy physics, astronomy, seismology and other areas of knowledge. Russia can participate in world-wide projects, however in order to meet the standards of international scientific cooperation, considerable efforts are necessary including proper financing and government support. In order for Russia to preserve its role of one of the major scientific centers, it's necessary to cooperate with foreign partners and make a contribution to projects implementation such as GLORIAD.

As per Velikhov, it is planned to use the GLORIAD project for providing communication between the international thermonuclear reactor ITER in France and the Center for research data processing, located in Japan, as well as for information exchange between scientists all over the world, who are conducting research on an accelerator in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Besides, GLORIAD capacity will be used in a number of other scientific areas as well: astronomy, high-energy physics, studying seismic activity and weather, telemedicine, education etc.

Velikhov's speech was followed by the presentations made by representatives of the countries-participants of the GLORIAD project. They have told about development of network infrastructure, and also about various applied projects, using GLORIAD capabilities. Certainly, the most complete information regarding scientific and educational activity, based on GLORIAD, had been presented by the Russian party.

The Deputy Director of MSU research institute of nuclear physics V.A.Ilyin informed the participants of the meeting about the GLORIAD project impact on the development of the distributed computing network GRID. The GRID system can drastically change usual ideas concerning calculation procedure, providing multiple increase in computing power. The GRID system makes it possible to join up regional and national computer infrastructures in order to create a combined resource, but only in case, the access to computing grid-structures is shared by everybody, is safe and reasonably priced. The aim of GLORIAD project is to make this access more available.

The Deputy Director of Federal Public Institution State Institute of Information Technologies and Telecommunications 'Informika' Y.L.Izhvanov described in his speech the prospects of building up a GLORIAD infrastructure in Russia as quite positive. GLORIAD project development in Russia, in his opinion, will promote information integration of the Russian science and education system into the world system.

The Director of RIPN A.P.Platonov focused on technical aspects of project implementation in his speech. He further developed the concept of building up a telecommunication infrastructure based on the resources available to each partner, and connected with major international information exchange points within S & E networks: StarLight (Chicago), NetherLight (Amsterdam), NothernLight (Stockholm), Open Exchange (Hong Kong). He also brought into perspective the plans of setting up a similar exchange point in Moscow - MoscowLight, based on the existing gigabit access system for Russian S & E networks G-NAP. The connection between MoscowLight, NothernLight and NetherLight through a 10 GB/sec channel can be executed within the next year.

In the next few days a number of productive discussions were held. They were mainly focused on the issues of organizational structure of GLORIAD project, prospects of network infrastructure development and financial issues. Greg Cole (USA) and Kees Neggers (The Netherlands) were determined as co-chairmen of the project. The fact of joining the GLORIAD project by the S & E network of Northern Countries NORDUnet was unanimously approved (the formal extension of the Agreement will be implemented in the nearest future). The participants appraised the results of the meeting and the quality of its organization as highly positive.

The participants of the meeting (many of whom were the first time visitors in Moscow) had an opportunity to see places of interest of the Russian capital. After the official part of the meeting was completed, the participants were in for an extensive cultural program: tour of the Academician Kurchatov museum, boat trip down the Moscow River, tour of the historic downtown, jazz show based on Gershwin music performed on the stage of Moscow Music Theatre 'Gelicon-Opera'.