Dissemination and exploitation of Grids in earth science

The Earth Science (ES) community has two major IT related concerns: Modeling, which requires vast amounts of computational resources, and exploration and production of large shared data sets. Both can be accomplishable by Grid infrastructure. Grid or Grid computing is a metaphor name for making computer power as easy to access as an electric power Grid1). Different Grid middleware software solutions exist and are being developed. DEGREE (Dissemination and Exploitation of Grids in Earth sciencE) aims to disseminate and promote uptake of Grid in ES and to create a bridge between ES and Grid communities to ensure the next Grid generation will integrate ES application requirements in the middleware and services. In order to achieve this, DEGREE will: identify key ES requirements, disseminate ES application requirements to Grid projects, evaluate Grid middleware tools and standards regarding ES requirements and provide feedbacks to Grid developers. In order to convey require ments to the Grid community, test suite specifications are developed. A test suite specification consists of documentation and an application suitable for testing, including the data needed. Eight test suite specifications are developed and made available by DEGREE for Grid middleware developers. Results will be used to support the development of the ES Grid vision.