EGEE Project

EGEE Project
Name	EGEE Project
Started	2004
Ended	2010
Participants	European Commission, CERN, academic and industrial partners

EGEE Project

The EGEE Project was a major European research infrastructure initiative that built and operated a production grid computing environment to support large-scale scientific computing needs. It connected computing centers, researchers, and industry across Europe and worldwide to enable data-intensive projects in high-energy physics, bioinformatics, climate modelling, and other domains. The project coordinated technical development, service operations, and user support across a matrix of national laboratories, universities, and commercial providers.

Overview

EGEE established a pan-European grid computing fabric integrating resources from organizations such as CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, INFN, CNRS, CNRS/IN2P3, and national research centers in countries including France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Greece, and Switzerland. The infrastructure supported flagship scientific endeavors like the Large Hadron Collider experiments (for example ATLAS (particle detector), CMS experiment), and provided services used by projects in bioinformatics, earth sciences, astronomy, and medical informatics. EGEE coordinated with pan-European initiatives such as GRID computing projects, regional e-infrastructure consortia, and international partners including Open Science Grid and national grid initiatives in United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia.

History and Development

EGEE originated from earlier European grid efforts that followed pilot projects and prototypes involving institutions like European Commission directorates, CERN, and national laboratories. The project evolved through phases funded under Framework Programme 6 and Framework Programme 7 to scale from research prototypes to a reliable production platform. Major milestones included integration with the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid and deployment of services across dozens of sites coordinated by regional operations centers in cities such as Geneva, Rome, Paris, and Barcelona. EGEE’s lifecycle overlapped with peer initiatives like Globus Toolkit deployments, the gLite middleware development effort, and successor programs that continued e-infrastructure work after EGEE concluded.

Architecture and Technologies

The EGEE software stack was based on middleware components developed and packaged for broad interoperability, drawing on contributions from projects such as gLite, Globus Toolkit, LCG (LHC Computing Grid), and standards from organizations like Open Grid Forum. The architecture featured distributed services for authentication and authorization (leveraging X.509 certificates and certificate authorities recognized by entities such as European Policy Management Authority for Grid Authentication), workload management systems influenced by Condor and PBS (software), data management services with design concepts akin to GridFTP and SRM (Storage Resource Manager), and monitoring systems comparable to Nagios and Ganglia. Resource providers included supercomputing centers like PRACE participants, national supercomputing centers, and university clusters in institutions such as University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, and Max Planck Society facilities.

Operations and Services

EGEE ran coordinated operations offering production-grade services: job submission and scheduling, data transfer and replication, metadata catalogues, user support through helpdesk and training delivered at venues like CERN and regional training hubs. Operations relied on regional operations centers and central coordination units that interfaced with projects such as Worldwide LHC Computing Grid for experiment workflows. Services were consumed by user communities in projects including LOFAR, BioGRID, Ensembl, Euro-Argo, EUROfusion research groups, and climate modelling consortia that required distributed data handling and high-throughput computing. The project also provided portal technologies integrating with web portals developed at institutions like Imperial College London and University College London.

Collaborations and Impact

EGEE fostered collaboration among stakeholders including national research networks like GÉANT, research infrastructures such as ESFRI projects, and international partners like Open Science Grid and the National Science Foundation community in the United States. The project accelerated adoption of grid middleware in disciplines spanning particle physics, genomics, geosciences, and social sciences, influencing successors in e-infrastructure such as EGI and national cloud initiatives. EGEE’s operational practices informed standards and policy work at bodies like the European Commission and the Open Grid Forum, and its training outreach built expertise in institutions including University of Amsterdam, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and national academies of science.

Funding and Governance

Funding for EGEE came primarily from the European Commission through Framework Programme instruments, supplemented by contributions from participating research organizations including CERN, national science agencies like CNRS, INFN, DFG, and industrial partners. Governance combined a project management office, technical boards, and policy advisory committees with representatives from major stakeholders such as regional operations centers, experiment collaborations like ATLAS (particle detector), and national grid initiatives. Administrative structures coordinated procurement, intellectual property policies, and standards alignment with European research infrastructure roadmaps and funding mechanisms managed by institutions such as European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and national ministries of science.

Category:Grid computing projects