The term Grid emerged in the nineties, when the rapid increase of network speeds facilitated the time-efficient integration of distributed computers and storage resources Foster and Kesselmann, 1998. In the meantime, the resources shared through Grids have been extended to personal computers, servers, compute clusters, supercomputers, storage systems and services like databases and so forth. In 2000 the first European project, DataGrid, to deploy a Grid over Europe was launched, followed up to now by other European projects, called EGEEI, EGEEII and EGEEIII. Since the beginning, 2000, the Earth Science community has started using the Grid. The experience acquired via academic and Ramp;D applications has demonstrated that Grid infrastructure could respond to the ES requirements. However, the interface between the ES software environment and Grid middleware is not simple for many applications. After nearly a decade of European Grid projects like EGEE, that have developed the infrastructure and put it in production for various scientific communities, the next challenge is to find a sustainable model for a continued operational phase. For this purpose, an organizational structure with a central office, called EGI European Grid Initiative, was founded. In this structure, the provisioning of infrastructure and related services is based on the National Grid Initiatives NGI of the participating countries. The user communities are organized according to their scientific domain in so called Grid Virtual Research Communities.
The term Grid emerged in the nineties, when the rapid increase of network speeds facilitated the time-efficient integration of distributed computers and storage resources Foster and Kesselmann, 1998. In the meantime, the resources shared through Grids have been extended to personal computers, servers, compute clusters, supercomputers, storage systems and services like databases and so forth. In 2000 the first European project, DataGrid, to deploy a Grid over Europe was launched, followed up to now by other European projects, called EGEEI, EGEEII and EGEEIII. Since the beginning, 2000, the Earth Science community has started using the Grid. The experience acquired via academic and Ramp;D applications has demonstrated that Grid infrastructure could respond to the ES requirements. However, the interface between the ES software environment and Grid middleware is not simple for many applications. After nearly a decade of European Grid projects like EGEE, that have developed the infrastructure and put it in production for various scientific communities, the next challenge is to find a sustainable model for a continued operational phase. For this purpose, an organizational structure with a central office, called EGI European Grid Initiative, was founded. In this structure, the provisioning of infrastructure and related services is based on the National Grid Initiatives NGI of the participating countries. The user communities are organized according to their scientific domain in so called Grid Virtual Research Communities.