EGEE-II will build on the work of the EGEE project to provide a production quality, seamless Grid infrastructure service across the ERA and across the globe.

The EGEE infrastructure benefits academic and industrial researchers in their daily work by simultaneously supporting many applications from diverse domains. EGEE-II will spread knowledge about the Grid and its benefits to researchers and students in High Energy Physics, Biomedicine, Earth Sciences, Astrophysics, Computational Chemistry, Fusion and other fields, through dedicated support teams and a well-defined training programme, as well as reinforcing links with the full spectrum of interested industrial partners.

EGEE-II will manage, extend and consolidate the infrastructure, to link national, regional and thematic Grid efforts and provide interoperability with other Grids, establishing a world-wide Grid infrastructure. Built on the pan-European research network GEANT2, the EGEE Grid provides researchers with round-the-clock access to a common pool of major storage, compute and networking facilities, independent of geographic location. The resulting high capacity infrastructure greatly surpasses the capabilities of local clusters and individual centres, providing a unique tool for collaborative compute-intensive science (e-Science).  User specific services from other projects and sources will be integrated in EGEE-II’s existing open source middleware to further increase the functionality, security and ease-of-use.

The EGEE-II consortium consists of 91 partners from 32 countries, grouped into 13 federations and representing almost all major efforts in Europe as well as working with emerging National Grid Initiatives. The project also works with major national projects from the US and Asia and a number of related projects will extend the infrastructure further, to the Mediterranean area, Baltic States, Latin America and China. Combined with other related projects spun out from or affiliated with EGEE and EGEE-II, this demonstrates the incubator role the project has played around the world.

As the European flagship RI Grid project, EGEE-II will have a structuring effect through its role as a coordination body for related Grid projects, reducing the digital divide across European states and actively participating in developing Grid standards. EGEE-II will pave the way for a long-term sustainable Grid infrastructure to ensure the resources and knowledge developed during EGEE and EGEE-II are available to researchers in Europe and beyond in years to come.

Project Objectives:

The vision of EGEE-II is consistent with that of EGEE and its mission is adapted to achieve the following goals:

• Manage and operate a production quality Grid infrastructure service across the European Research Area;
• Diverse scientific communities will have applications deployed on EGEE-II, including high energy physics, biomedicine, earth sciences, astrophysics, computational chemistry, fusion;
• Several large-scale communities will use EGEE-II as an every-day tool for their work.  Small groups will find the EGEE infrastructure and services effective for their needs and within their reach in terms of expertise and manpower required;
• EGEE-II, as the flagship Grid research infrastructure project of the European Union, will reinforce its position and act as a coordinating body for related Grid projects;
• Offer interoperability with e-Infrastructure projects in other regions of the globe;
• Extend knowledge about Grid and its benefits to researchers and students in many scientific domains through a well-defined dissemination and training programme;
• Reinforce links with the full spectrum of interested industrial partners;
• By the end of EGEE-II, all research and development, preparatory technical and managerial work will be done to become a permanent Grid infrastructure, in a GÉANT2-like manner.