Full version, 2000.12.19

Postdoc Positions for a Nordic GRID Test Bed

GRID is a highly potential future scheme for providing high throughput computing. The scheme is based on the use of geographically dispersed clusters of large numbers of commodity computers (PCs, workstations) and disc memory units, connected through very high speed data links. An inter-Nordic test bed facility, aiming at the implementation of such a GRID scheme in Scandinavia, to be part of a future worldwide GRID, is presently being planned. The test bed facility will provide hardware and software infrastructure for interdisciplinary feasibility studies of GRID-like computer structures and metacomputing. The project shall collect and document experience to provide a basis for decisions on the future computer infrastructure strategy for sciences requiring distributed petabyte (10¹⁵bytes) storage capacity and processing power in the order of teraflops (10¹² flops).

The test bed project is set up as an inter-Nordic collaboration between the universities in Copenhagen, Lund, Stockholm, Uppsala, Helsinki, Oslo and Bergen. The research groups at these universities, that have initiated this project, are preparing high-energy physics experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory in Geneva. The LHC will start operating in 2005. A satisfactory analysis of the massive amounts of experimental data that will be produced at LHC can only be achieved if processing capacities of the order mentioned above can be made available at that time. CERN has initiated a European DATAGRID test bed project, with financial support from EC, with which the inter-Nordic GRID test bed project will be coordinated. Processing power of the same order will also be required in the future for research in Earth sciences, genomics, molecular biology, space science, astrophysics and many other branches of natural sciences and technology. The inter-Nordic GRID test bed project is, like the CERN DATAGRID project, planned to include GRID applications for sciences outside the high-energy physics.

The inter-Nordic GRID test bed project is divided into 6 Work Packages which are: 1)test bed hardware, such as networks and computer farms, 2) computer farm software, such as the Globus and Condor packages, 3) GRID monitoring services, such as problem tracing and security, 4) GRID data management, to provide features like scalability, uniformity and transparency, 5) user applications and benchmark tests, to be supplied from different disciplines and 6) dissemination of information on GRID through, e.g., Web sites and workshops.

The Nordunet2 program has allocated funds for two postdoc positions for the inter-Nordic GRID test bed project. The applicant should have experience of work with computers and programming in natural science research. The two nominees are expected to take a key role in the execution of the Work Packages. The first phase of the project will be focused on getting the hardware and software infrastructure of Work Packages 1 to 4 into an operational state. In addition to installing and maintaining already available software packages, there will be need for software development, in particular, for Work Packages 3 and 4. The project is planned for the period from January 2001 to July 2003. The positions are announced for 1+1 years, starting spring 2001, with the second year pending confirmation by the Nordunet2 council. A yearly grant, exempt from taxation, of the equivalent of about 250 000 DKK, will be paid for each position. One position will be based at Lund University and cover the activities in Copenhagen, Lund, Oslo and Bergen, and the other position will be based at Uppsala University and cover the activities in Stockholm, Uppsala and Helsinki. The application should state which of the two positions it refers to, and be accompanied by a CV, a list of publications and two letters of recommendation. It should be submitted in five copies before 25 February 2001 to:

Lektor John Renner Hansen
Dept. of Experimental High Energy Physics
Niels Bohr Institute
Blegdamsvej 17
DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø
DENMARK