Businesses invited to get involved in grids

Funding opportunities

Business Experiments in GRID, or BEinGRID, has been conducting real-world experiments with Grid technologies for more than a year. Now the BEinGRID project has launched a second competitive call for further proposals from businesses to use and validate Grid technologies for corporate applications.

BEinGRID is the largest integrated project funded by the Information Society Technologies as part of the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme.

During its first year of activities BEinGRID initiated18 business experiments on the Grid.

According to Gregory Katsaros, who leads the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Computer Aided Design programme, CFD is currently the fastest growing aspect Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) simulation. Grid-enabled technologies are increasing cost-effectiveness and accelerating the uptake and application of more complex CFD.

The National Technical University of Athens leads the consortium, which is developing to a Grid-based method for performing CFD design optimisation and demonstrating its potential. Realistic automotive and aerospace design applications have been developed to showcase the reliability and performance of Grid enabled CFD.

The overall aim is to put in place effective routes to foster the adoption of Grid-related technologies by European businesses and to stimulate the research into innovative business models using Grid-enabled service oriented infrastructures.

BEinGRID coordinator, Santi Ristol, from the computer services company Atos Origin, says the projects are, “Going beyond research and making a real impact on key European economic sectors.”

To drive the take-up of the Grid, the Gridipedia repository has been set up as public source of information on business applications of Grid technologies (www.gridipedia.eu). Gridipedia is intended to create Grid marketplace, enabling individuals and organisations to create, provide and use Grid technologies.

BEinGRID’s second call for to develop business applications has €2 million to fund five to seven new Grid pilots. The new Business Experiments approved by the Commission will start in February/March 2008.

The case studies resulting from the first 18 projects will be showcased at the BEinGRID Industry Days event, in Madrid on 20–21 2008. According to Santi Ristol, “This will be an opportunity to access high-quality content, real-world business case studies and best practices of Grid adoption.”