Case studies

The grid computing resources provided by the EGI federation are being used by scientists and researchers across Europe and beyond. Here is a list of successful, use case applications where grid computing is helping scientists and researchers to solve big questions that affect people's lives.

Earth Sciences

• The LizzaPAKP grid-enabled application is helping city planners to manage drinking water supplies around Belgrade, Serbia.

• How fast could a T-rex run? And, more importantly, was it fast enough to catch you? Grid computing is helping palaeontologists to understand better how dinosaurs moved around and what roles they played in their ancient world.

• Protecting Portugal's Aveiro Lagoon. How grid computing allows for a better management of coastal resources.

• Modelling earthquakes in Thessaloniki. Predicting earthquakes is impossible, but grid computing helps to anticipate their effects.

• Environment modelling from Bulgaria. Three environmental modelling applications developed in Bulgaria have been successfully ported to the grid infrastructure. The applications will help Bulgarian scientists and their collaborators to study the impact of climate change on air quality, model the atmospheric composition on various scales and investigating possible emergency responses to the release of harmful substances into the atmosphere. More information

Physics

• B-physics on the grid – the view from the frontline. Serena Oggero explains how grid computing is helping in her PhD research

• Big science needs big computing: the WLCG. The worldwide LHC computing grid (WLCG) is a global collaboration linking grid infrastructures and computer centres around the world and a suitable computing solution to provide the power to analyse the LHC data and the space to store it.

• Building a sun on Earth. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) aims to demonstrate the uses of fusion power as an alternative energy source. This requires demanding computing power and the EUFORIA (EU Fusion fOR Iter Applications) project was setup to provide a computing framework to support the scientific work behind the reactor. More information

Life Sciences

• Understanding animal genes with the GridQTL application. The GridQTL application provides fast and robust analysis of areas of the genome related to important traits. Running this application on the grid reduced analysis time by a factor of 150. GridQTL is used to investigate a wide range of inherited traits in domesticated animals.

• Hunting for new types of viruses. Respiratory infections such as croup are a major child health problem, but many are caused by still unknown viruses. 

• Mapping the genome of the Netherlands. The Genome of the Netherlands (GoNL) aims to sequence the genomes of 750 individuals to create a snapshot of the Dutch genetic profile. The input data alone is 30 terabytes, with the output expected to be 20 times larger. More on GoNL

• Enhancing diagnostic tools for doctors. The DECIDE (Diagnostic Enhancement of Confidence by an International Distributed Environment) project is setting up a dedicated production grid that brings diagnostic tools to the medical community. The SPM (Statistical Parametric Mapping), for example, can help doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages and track the progress of the symptoms over time. More on DECIDE
   

Other Sciences

• Hearing the ancient world. The ASTRA (Ancient instruments Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application) project analyses information from various sources, including images of old instruments and descriptions in texts, to rediscover the music of the past. Using the European grid to process the data, they have successfully recreated four different ancient instruments from Europe and South America. More information

• A gem of a user. Neasan O'Neill finds how Ernesto Garcia is putting the grid to good use in his Chemistry research.