Msila University host first workshop on how using Science Gateway GRID facilities for physicists through Algerian GRID infrastructure

20 November 2014

Msila University has hosted a Workshop on using DZ e-Science GRID Infrastructure for Physicists” from 08th to 10th November 2014, held by DZ e-Science GRID team on behalf of Algerian Research Network “ARN”. This training activity is a major action which has the aim to discover GRID facilities available through algerian GRID initiative to researchers whom need storage and compute-intensive for their applications.

This action is also an achievement of an effort down jointly with CHAIN-REDS project partners to facilitate access and use of GRID services through specific portal named “Science Gateway” which integrate Web technologies and GRID technolgies. Recently, a calculation code “Abinit” has been integrated to “Algerian Science Gateway” as currently physicists from about six universities are using Abinit code for their calculations in differents topics related to studies of materials. A group of nine researchers from Msila University has been trained to use GRID Infrastructure and Science Gateway during this Workshop.

Nadjib Baadji, researcher at Msila University said “Furthermore, Abinit is well documented and easy to use which make it a suitable package for Algerian simulators. Especially, condensed matter theorists, can use it to investigate the physical properties of matter and give insights to experimentalists to produce a given material with an appropriate physical behavior. This in term will also help industry to overpass some of their problems related the material properties, including mechanical, optical, magnetical and electrical properties”.

Among the work being done by researchers at Msila University, Salima Saib team performed density functional theory studies of the structural, elastic, piezoelectric and dynamical properties, mainely of III-V and II-IV compounds and alloys in different possible structures. She said «The compositional dependence of such properties of interest over the whole composition range was analyzed and discussed using an initio pseudopotential approach under the virtual crystal approximation within the local density approximation. In general the findings agree well with the available data in the literature and others are reported for the first time and may serve as a reference for future studies ».

Msila University host first workshop on how using Science Gateway GRID facilities for physicists through Algerian GRID infrastructure

Aouaouche El-Maouhab, General Manager of DZ e-Science GRID and ARN who chaired this workshop announced at the end « The objectives we fixed for this workshop has been reached as we have contributed to create the first « abinit community » using DZ e-Science GRID. The plan is to extend the DZ e-Science GRID infrastructure use to most scientists and researchers in Algeria ».

About DZ e-Science GRID

The DZ e-Science GRIDis an initiative funded by the Algerian Ministry for Higher Education and Scientific Research and has been operated since 2006 by the Networks Division at the Research Centre on Scientific and Technical Information (CERIST). The main objective is to set up a Grid infrastructure and Grid computing services for scientific communities with high computing and storage requirements. The certification authority DZ e-Science CA was launchedin 2011and is fully operational with accreditation from the European organisation EugridPMAwhich coordinates the trust fabric for e-Science authentication in Europe and collaborates with the regional peers APGridPMA for the Asia-Pacific and the Americas GRID PMA in the International Grid Trust Federation. The DZ e-Science GRID is part of the Algerian Research Network ARNservices and participated in EUMEDGRID and EPIKH EC/FP7projects. For more information, visit www.grid.arn.dz

About ARN

ARN is the Algerian NREN (National Research & Education Network) funded by the Algerian Ministry for Higher Education and Scientific Research. Operated since 1994 by the Networks Division at the Research Centre on Scientific and Technical Information (CERIST), ARN is connecting 110 institutions: all universties, research centres, high schools. ARN is built on a national backbone with 10 PoPs and is using two international links with 1.4 Gbps: one to the GEANT Pan-European Research and Education Network (622 Mbps) through the EUMEDCONNECT3 project and another link for commodity Internet with commercial providers (777 Mbps). For more information, visit www.arn.dz

About EUMEDCONNECT3

EUMEDCONNECT3 provides high-capacity Internet-based connectivity for researchers, academics and students across Northern Africa and the Middle East. With its direct links to GÉANT it is a gateway for the Mediterranean to participate in world-class research and education initiatives. EUMEDCONNECT3 is co-funded by the European Union and is now in its third phase which runs until 2014. It forms a network platform for the Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN) which has been formed to create a R&E network for the wider Arab region. EUMEDCONNECT3 is run by international research networking organisation DANTE, in collaboration with ASREN, the EU and local NRENs. For more information, visit www.eumedconnect3.netAbout CHAIN-REDS

CHAIN-REDS is a FP7 project co-funded by the European Commission (DG CONNECT) aiming at promoting and supporting technological and scientific collaboration across different e-Infrastructures established and operated in various continents, in order to define a path towards a global e-Infrastructure ecosystem that will allow Virtual Research Communities (VRCs), research groups and even single researchers to access and efficiently use worldwide distributed resources (i.e., computing, storage, data, services, tools, applications). For more information, visit http://www.chain-project.eu

About Abinit

ABINIT is an implementation of density functional theory based using pseudopotentials and a planewave or wavelet basis.In addition to computing the electronic ground state of materials, ABINIT computes the responses functions including: Phonons, Dielectric response, Response to strain and elastic properties, Raman cross sections, and electro-optic response. ABINIT in parallel version shows a nice scaling with the number of processors and it almost linear especially for few CPU. This parallel version will help to speed up calculations. For more information, visit www.abinit.org