{"id":25276,"date":"2012-03-01T06:21:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T05:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=25276"},"modified":"2024-11-14T16:28:51","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T15:28:51","slug":"flying-high-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/flying-high-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying high in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Today a consortium of leading IT providers and three of Europe\u2019s biggest research centres (CERN, EMBL and ESA) announced a partnership to launch a European cloud computing platform. \u2018Helix Nebula&nbsp;\u2010&nbsp;the Science Cloud\u2019, will support the massive IT requirements of European scientists, and become available to governmental organisations and industry after an initial pilot phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The partnership is working to establish a sustainable European cloud computing infrastructure, supported by industrial partners, which will provide stable computing capacities and services that elastically meet demand. This pan\u2010European partnership across academia and industry is in line with the Digital Agenda of the European Commission and will foster innovation for science and create new commercial markets. During a two\u2010year pilot phase, Helix Nebula will be deployed and tested based on three flagship projects proposed by CERN, EMBL and ESA: to accelerate the search for the elusive Higgs particle, to boost large\u2010scale genomic analyses in biomedical research, and support research into natural disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics, will have access to more computing power to process data from the ATLAS experiment at its Large Hadron Collider accelerator. \u201cCERN\u2019s computing capacity needs to keep\u2010up with the enormous amount of data coming from the Large Hadron Collider and we see Helix Nebula\u2010&nbsp;the Science Cloud as a great way of working with industry to meet this challenge,\u201d said Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Hemmer, head of CERN\u2019s IT department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Second, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is setting up a new service to simplify the analysis of large genomes, such as those from mammals, allowing a deeper insight into evolution and biodiversity across a range of organisms. \u201cThe quantities of genomic sequence data are vast and the needs for high performance computing infrastructures and bioinformatics expertise to analyse these data pose a challenge for many laboratories. EMBL\u2019s novel cloud\u2010based whole\u2010genome\u2010assembly and annotation pipeline involves expertise from the Genomics Core Facility at EMBL Headquarters in Germany, EMBL\u2019s European Bioinformatics Institute, and EMBL Heidelberg&#8217;s IT Services. It will allow scientists, at EMBL and around the world, to overcome these hurdles and provide the right infrastructure on demand,\u201d said Rupert Lueck, head of IT services at EMBL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Third, the European Space Agency (ESA), in partnership with the Centre National d\u2019Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is collaborating with the National Research Council (CNR)in Italy, to create an Earth observation platform focusing on earthquake and volcano research. This undertaking is done in the framework of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a voluntary partnership of governments and international organisations. Volker Liebig, ESA Director for Earth observation programmes, said, \u201cHelix Nebula\u2010&nbsp;the Science Cloud is a partnership with the potential to support an utmost exploitation of ESA satellite data, as well as to bring other communities on board to better understand the geophysical phenomena of our planet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">More information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The commercial partners in this platform are Atos, Capgemini, CloudSigma, Interoute, Logica, Orange Business Services, SAP, SixSq, Telefonica, Terradue, Thales, The Server Labs and T\u2010Systems, along with the Cloud Security Alliance, the OpenNebula Project and the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI.eu). They are working together to establish a federated and secure high\u2010performance computing cloud platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other scientific organisations and service providers are welcome to join Helix Nebula \u2013 the Science Cloud. For more details and updates about Helix Nebula&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;the Science Cloud, please visit us on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HelixNebula.TheScienceCloud\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook<\/a>, follow\u2010us on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/HelixNebulaSC#!\/HelixNebulaSC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Twitter<\/a>&nbsp;or send an email to&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:contact@helix%5Fnebula.eu\">contact@helix\u2010nebula.eu<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contact at EMBL<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lena Raditsch<br \/>Head of Communications &amp; Public Relations<br \/><strong>Tel:<\/strong>&nbsp;+49 6221 387 8125<br \/><strong>E-mail:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:lena.raditsch@embl.de\">lena.raditsch@embl.de<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>OR<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rupert L\u00fcck<br \/>Head of IT Services<br \/><strong>Tel:<\/strong>&nbsp;+49 6221 387 8427<br \/><strong>E-mail:<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:rupert.lueck@embl.de\">rupert.lueck@embl.de<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today a consortium of leading IT providers and three of Europe\u2019s biggest research centres (CERN, EMBL and ESA) announced a partnership to launch a European cloud computing platform. \u2018Helix Nebula&nbsp;\u2010&nbsp;the Science Cloud\u2019, will support the massive IT requirements of European&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17591],"tags":[1005,623,1930],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-25276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-cloud-computing","tag-computing","tag-it"],"acf":{"show_featured_image":false,"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"article_intro":"<p>Big science teams up with big 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