Reporting from EGEE'08, the opening plenaries

EGEE’08 is underway at last and the first few sessions have sped past already. At this morning’s opening plenaries the 500 plus delegates were welcomed to the extremely elegant conference venue, the Harbiye Askeri Museum by Dr Nuket Yetis of TUBITAK ULAKBIM, the local partners who are hosting the meeting with TR-GRID. He outlined TUBITAK ULAKBIM’s involvement in EGEE and other grid projects before handing over to Mario Campolargo of the European Commission. Campolargo stressed the importance of cooperation if Europe is to stay at the forefront of grid technologies. Dr Bob Jones then stepped up to the podium to sum up the vision for the third phase of EGEE, as it moves towards a sustainable future.

After coffee break and an impressive range of accompanying nibbles, representatives from the EGEE platinum sponsors took the floor. Steven Gillich of HPC Technology / Intel described the importance of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, which will be launched on 3rd October at the LHC GridFest. He described how HPC Technology is delighted to be part of Openlab for Intel, where “science at the edge meets technology at the edge”. From Dell, Tunc Erkan reminded us of the staggering growth of the internet since Digital Equipment Corp founder Ken Olsen famously said, "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." Cloud computing is the new buzz word in computing and is as important for Dell as for many companies – watch out for the cloud computing sessions later in the conference. Final word from the opening plenaries went to Dieter Kranzlmueller of LMU and the European Grid Initiative. Dr Kranzlmueller reviewed the aims of EGI and the path to a sustainable grid infrastructure set out by the EGI Design Study. More about EGI later!