South African site now integrated into the EGI Federated Cloud

EGI Federated cloud team is delighted to announce the integration of a South African site in the EGI cloud. The newest integration is ILIFU-UCT, an Openstack infrastructure hosted at the University of Cape Town and run by the Inter-University Institute for Data-Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) and associated with several South African universities. The ILIFU-UCT cluster consists of over 4000 processing cores and more than 10 PB (raw) storage. Along with regional support of astronomy and bioinformatics communities, it will provide resources to international EGI communities as part of collaboration within the EGI-ACE project. About the EGI Federated Cloud The EGI Federated Cloud is an IaaS-type cloud consisting of academic, private clouds and virtualised resources built around open standards. The requirements of the scientific community drive its development. About ILIFU-UCT More information about Ilifu, a big data infrastructure for data-intensive research, can be found here.

South African - EU Dialogue workshop - new opportunities for collaboration

European Union is working on improving the collaboration between Sout Africa and EU in research area. One of the main outcome of the SA-EU Dialogue so far is a SA Open Science Cloud (SAOSC) Framework that will lead to the establishment of a SAOSC focused on research, development, and innovation. The Framework should be aligned with the envisaged Open Science Policy (currently under development) led by the DSI; cognisant of the Data and Cloud Policy of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT). The SAOSC Framework will include a set of policy-based recommendations for the implementation of the South African Open Science Cloud (SAOSC) as part of an Open Science enabling environment. Guidelines and principles on critical aspects such as governance and management, resourcing, policies, monitoring and evaluation, and technologies enabling Open Science will be addressed in this dialogue. Workshop The successful development of the Framework will require broad-based consultations and inputs from stakeholders across the entire National System of Innovation, government departments and the private sector. To facilitate this broad-based consultation, a town-hall stakeholder (including international participants) workshop is planned for 3 February 2022. The workshop format is envisaged as a one day hybrid workshop comprising an introductory plenary of dignitaries; the DSI context; an EOSC keynote address; and overview presentations on four thematic area by a leading authority in that area. Simultaneous breakaways will follow, co-ordinated by a facilitator to allow for specialised discussions in each area, with a mix of SA and international presenters, and with a moderator/rapporteur to report back to the final plenary. The breakaway sessions will be structured by a high-level speaker who will be invited to share the current thinking in the international discussion on each thematic area; allowing local lead services to respond to start the debate. More information about the workshop.