IGALC – Latin American and Caribbean Grid Initiative is an entity devoted to the development and dissemination of grid technologies through the region.
Supporting different middlewares (gLite, OurGrid and possibly others), it aims to integrate the existing grids in LAC, becoming a common interface between initiatives such as EGI, EGEE, OSG, TeraGrid. Furthermore, another goal is to foster an ever-increasing overall quality of the infrastructure. The federation of resources gives the communities access to more computational power than what isolated departments are able to provide.
Service list
• EGEE ROC
IGALC operates an EGEE ROC. It monitors Resource Centers under it, dispatching tickets when necessary to ensure all problems are known by the administrators and timely solved. The ROC also provides support to the Resource Centers, assisting the resolution of the aforementioned problems.
• Operating Center for Latin American grids
For Resource Centers that are not part of EGEE, IGALC offers services similar to a ROC. Resource Center monitoring, ticket dispatching and problem solving support are among the services provided.
IGALC maintains – in partnership with the EELA-2 project – a website containing grid-related information of various sorts: from manipulating a digital certificate instructions to Resource Center deployment guidelines.
• Resource Center deployment support
To stimulate institutions to embark on grid activities, IGALC offers Resource Center deployment support. IGALC is always willing to interact with institutions that are new to grid technology in order to get them on par with the ones that have been using grid for a longer time. In addition, whenever a Resource Center, new or experienced, is having trouble with new services or updated versions of the ones already deployed, IGALC is available for assistance.
• Virtual Research Community support
Different Virtual Research Communities have different needs. This also holds true when it comes to grid. IGALC offers gridification support to LAC developers who wish to empower their applications with grid technology.
• Grid forum
IGALC permanently hosts a grid forum that is a common place on the Internet for trading ideas or information about grid related activities in LAC region. This forum allows grid users and site administrators to chime in about their particular experiences, information, tips, tricks etc, thus allowing grid communities to come together and find information about relent topics. Moreover, IGALC teams constantly search new topics of interest in order to extend the reach of grid related activities amongst the LAC community and abroad.