Image courtesy e-IRG

Since the publication of the previous e-IRG Roadmap in 2007, the e-Infrastructure field has undergone several fundamental changes. Networking, grid, data, high performance and commodity computing services are witnessing major organizational and technical changes. The ongoing expansion of the e Infrastructure user communities is also already producing new and updated requirements for the common e Infrastructure.

To help deal with this, the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group — an inter-governmental policy body comprising national delegates from more than 30 European countries — has released the e-IRG Roadmap for e-Infrastructures, (Publications/Roadmap).

Rather than looking at these changes independently, the Roadmap analyzes their impact from the points of view of users, service providers and the society as a whole. Ultimately, the document makes several recommendations aimed at maximizing the positive socio-economic impact of new innovation opportunities that are opening up.

The e-IRG Roadmap 2010 is the result of a collective effort synthesizing numerous insights provided by the e IRG experts. It also includes numerous valuable external contributions, in particular from the user communities belonging to the ESFRI network.