SMSCG provides shared computational resources and basic data management facilities for the Swiss scientific community to solve computational problems. With the second phase availability, reliability and quality of services of the computational resources are enhanced. Support for basic data management services have been implemented - driven by user and application requirements.

(see also phase 1 and phase 3 and phase 4)

Results

Component	Description
New release of the SMSCG monitor	This release of the SMSCG monitor provides access to both the user monitoring interface and the system monitoring infrastructure.
HTC dedicated solutions mostly developed with the GC3Pie framework	Technical details as well as usage information. gcrypto High Throughput cryptographic analysis. ggamess High Throughput GAMESS data analysis. gosetta High Throughput ROSETTA data analysis. gpremium Model calibration using Global Optimization for economic models. gmhc_coev Matlab based implementation of an individual-based population genetic model.
WP2-IAP3 Users evaluation feedback	From this page it is possible to display detailed accounting information. Both number of jobs and used walltime can be classified per available resource and/or per Virtual Organization.

During the second part of the project, a more aggressive approach has been taken in order to reach out more user groups. The combination of a production-ready infrastructure and a personalized user support allowed to establish a small but active user community that leverage the SMSCG infrastructure to address part of their computational requirements. The personalized solutions that have been developed for the specific usecases create a natural dependency on the SMSCG infrastructure, thus providing the first step towards the establishment of a dedicated user community.

Based on Swiss technology contributions (such as the Short Life Credential Service SLCS), any Swiss academic user can use her university login to request access to the computational Grid infrastructure and the related storage services. That is a unique feature that to the best of our knowledge no other country has yet achieved.

Grid technology is changing rapidly. In fact, it is moving towards cloud approaches which make it even easier for end users to just use their applications and software in a distributed computing environment. Switzerland has already started to use cloud resources, and the SMSCG team is ready to make the next step in the technology evolution.
SMSCG will continue its future activities within the SMSCG-III project.

---

Goals

The overall SMSCG project goal is to provide computational resources to solve scientific computational problems. The provision of the computational resources has been achieved to a large extend in the SMSCG phase 1 project.
The second phase aims at enhancing availability, reliability and quality of services of the available computational resources.
The novel contribution and innovation is the explicit support for basic data management services, implementation of which is fully driven by user and application requirements.

From the experiences gained in SMSCG phase 1 the need to concentrate on the following issues has been identified:

1. Support for users and applications:
   • support for novel usage model(s);
   • data management support;
   • active grid user recruitment and migration support.
2. Sustainability:
   • clear added value for all partners and users;
   • maintenance of the infrastructure must require only a minimal effort;
   • clear business model that regulates the quality of service (QoS).

Steps

The work is divided into the following work packages:

1. Operation and Infrastructure:
   • Service operation
   • Site Integration Support
   • Data management
   • Assessment of new middleware releases
   • Automation of package integration
   • Security, Policies and SLAs
   • Monitoring and Accounting
2. User Support and Recruitment:
   • User support
   • Recruitment of new users I - via migration from local to grid
   • Recruitment of new users II - via addition of a new 'user model'
   • Increase application portfolio
3. Applications:
   • Application support
   • Selectome/codeml