MREN

The successful GÉANT network and project that lie at the heart of the EU’s e-Infrastructure strategy began a third term in April 2009, and are due to continue for four years. GÉANT is co-fundedby 34 European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and the EC under the EU's 7th R&D framework programme.

The previous GÉANT project which ended early 2009, was mainly focussed on building the high capacity network itself. Now that this infrastructure has been completed, the current GÉANT project is focussed on developing and rolling out tools and services to enable the research and education community to get the best performance possible from the network.

GÉANT’s key objectives are to:

Deliver real value and benefit to society by enabling research communities across Europe (and the world) to transform the way they collaborate on ground-breaking research
Operate and expand the European backbone network, interconnecting NRENs through high bandwidth links
Develop and support the GÉANT Service Area, a portfolio of advanced multi-domain network support services, and provide a portfolio of end-user application services for NRENs to deliver to users to ensure seamless network performance
Pursue initiatives targeted at closing the “digital divide” of research and education networking in Europe and investigate emerging technologies that will help shape the future Internet. [web site]

SEERA-EI aim to ensure equal participation of the region in European networking and Grid computing trends. SEEREN initiative has established regional network and SEE-GRID the regional Grid. SEE-LIGHT project is currently establishing dark-fibre backbone in the region, and SEE-GRID-SCI empowering strategic regional user communities in common use of the eInfrastructure. Close collaboration of National Research & Education Networks and National Grid Initiatives in the region was crucial in materialising this vision. The above initiatives have also raised awareness of national ministries for the necessity of local programmes and financial support for eInfrastructures: a number of ministries have contributed to local network funding and regional interconnections, as well as national Grid programmes.

SEERA-EI will capitalise on this momentum and link national-level programme managers and provide an open forum for information exchange, in order to enable coordination of national programmes in eInfrastructures, and to set the framework for a common regional agenda. The project will gather and exchange information regarding current programmes and carry out a state-of-the-art analysis; produce set of best practices and guidelines for national eInfrastructure programmes; and identify areas for joint regional activities, ranging from short-term soft actions, mid-term policy-level actions, to preparatory activities for long-term actions.

SEERA-EI will reduce fragmentation of national programmes, create a harmonised approach to national-level initiatives in eInfrastructures, ensure local commitment, and pave the way towards common regional vision, strategy and sustainable cooperation which will give the region a common voice on European and international stage and strengthen the ERA as a whole, enabling collaborative high-quality research across a spectrum of scientific fields. [web site]

SEE-GRID-SCI (SEE-GRID eInfrastructure for regional eScience) is a 2 year project co-funded by the European Commission, starting on 01/05/2008.
eInfrastructure in Europe has reached a mature state where the GÉANT network forms a communications backbone on top of which a distributed computing infrastructure – the Grid – provides processing and storage services for eScience research. The South-East European eInfrastructure initiatives are committed to ensuring equal participation of the less-resourced countries of the region in European trends. SEEREN initiative has established a regional network and its GÉANT connection and the SEE-GRID initiative the regional Grid.

SEE-GRID-SCI leverages the SEE eInfrastructure to enable new scientific collaborations among user communities

SEE-GRID-SCI stimulates widespread eInfrastructure uptake by new user groups extending over the region, fostering collaboration and providing advanced capabilities to more researchers, with an emphasis on strategic groups in seismology, meteorology and environmental protection. The initiative thus aims to have a catalytic and structuring effect on target user communities that currently do not directly benefit from the available infrastructures.
In parallel, it aims to enlarge the regional eInfrastructure to cater for demands of the communities by increasing the computing and storage resources and involving new partner countries in the region.
Finally, SEE-GRID-SCI targets to help mature and stabilise the National Grid Initiatives in the region, allowing them to join the new era of longer-term sustainable Grid infrastructure in Europe.

In longer term, SEE-GRID-SCI aspires to contribute to the stabilisation and development of South-East Europe, by easing the digital divide and stimulating eInfrastructure development and adoption by new user communities, thus enabling collaborative high-quality research across target scientific fields. [web site]

SEEREN2 aims at creating the next generation of the southeast European segment of GEANT, that intends to make leading-edge technologies and services available to the entire Research and Education communities and all scientific sectors without discrimination between users and sites in southeast Europe in an attempt to further ease the 'digital divide' that still separates most of the SE European countries from the rest of the continent. The central element of this infrastructure is the SE European R&E backbone network that extends, through the participating NRENs, to the end-users in all participating countries. With respect to its predecessor (SEEREN), the infrastructure will be substantially enhanced in its performance but more significantly will add a new key item to its fundamental characteristic, the consolidation of the networking and Grid infrastructures, into an eInfrastructure for SE Europe, fully integrated with the pan-European efforts (GEANT2, EGEE, SEE-GRID etc). [web site]

SEE-GRID intends to provide specific support actions to pave the way towards the participation of the SE European countries to the Pan-European and worldwide Grid initiatives. This will be accomplished through disseminationconferences and training material including cookbooks, pilot and demonstrationtest-beds for hands-on experience, applications' adaptations to be able to use the Grid, operational and support centre schemes and organisation, and finally feasibility studies and roadmaps for the integration of the SEE to the European Research Area (ERA) via an extended Pan-European Grid infrastructure. [web site]

Faculties and companies mentioned below signed an Memorandum of supporting and developing GRID technologies in Montenegro as well as its implementation in scientific and research purpose

University of Montenegro
Centre of Information System - CIS
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering,
Faculty of Metallurgy and Technology,
Faculty of Natural sciences and Mathematics,
Faculty of Civil Engineering,
Institute of Marine Biology,

Hydrological and Meteorological Service of Montenegro,
T-com,
Cikom – ICT engineering, ltd,
IT Advanced Services ltd. (ITAS).

Projects