KIT Helps Build the European Open Science Cloud

EU Funds Setup of a European Cloud with Services for the Exchange, Use, and Reuse of Research Data – KIT Coordinates One of Thirteen Work Packages on “IT Service Management”

KIT baut European Open Science Cloud mit auf — KIT is active partner in the setup of a European big data cloud infrastructure for the exchange of scientific data. (Photo: Andreas Drollinger)

Early this year, setup of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) started. It is to be a Europe-wide cloud platform, on which scientists can store, share, use, and reuse research data. As scientific data volumes may be gigantic, special know-how is needed for the setup and administration of the big data cloud infrastructure. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) will contribute its vast expertise in the administration of big data volumes to many activities, including the security concept. In particular, KIT is responsible for the IT service management, such as establishment of a service catalog, support processes and tools, and a central service desk for user inquiries.

In the next years, the European Commission will invest several hundred million euros in the setup of a cloud infrastructure for the easy exchange of scientific data across disciplines and countries. This will enhance European cooperation in science and provide about 1.7 million scientists in Europe with better conditions and IT services for the transformation of data into knowledge. More than 75 research partners cooperate for this purpose.

KIT’s Steinbuch Centre for Computing (ESCC) possesses long-standing experience in the management of big scientific data due to the operation of GridKa for the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at CERN in Geneva or the coordination of the Helmholtz Data Federation (HDF). Within the HDF, research data of the Helmholtz Association are already being stored similar to what the EOSC is planned to do for entire Europe. “As a reliable partner, we will contribute this experience to the setup of the EOSC and to the EU projects EOSC-hub and EOSCpilot,” Professor Achim Streit, Director of the SCC, says. In particular, work of KIT will focus on security aspects, such as authentification and authorization in the service infrastructure of the EOSC. “In a federated research cloud for entire Europe, i.e. a cloud that will bring together many different, already existing service infrastructures and their users, it must be guaranteed that only those persons and institutions are given access to services and data, which are supposed to have access,” Streit says.

Full text: Press Release 015/2018

sis, 19.02.2018