Status and prospects of development of the Ukrainian national grid. Analysis and logic of possible development

Abstract

In this article, the status, problems, and prospects of development of the Ukrainian National Grid (UNG) are considered. As the methodology for describing and providing the grid-services to consumers, the ITILv.3 library was used to describe the best practices for organizing the work of companies which provide services in the field of information technologies. The methodology for assessing the level of the maturity, that was developed in the FP7-gSLM project, for Ukrainian grid-infrastructure was augmented with the technique of an assessment of levels of maturity of management of the grid-program, the level of communications, and the information. It allowed us to estimate quantitatively the state of development of UNG, to determine the areas with the problems, and to prove the necessity of urgent further actions. These actions include the following: developing the communications between the resource centers and coordination bodies, creating the minimum guaranteed level of access to resources for the virtual organizations, and developing the mechanisms of integration into the European research communities. It is shown that under the current economic conditions, it is necessary to concentrate efforts (including financial efforts) on support and development of the resource centers which are integrated to European grid-infrastructure and are capable to provide the functioning of the national grid-infrastructures while providing the minimum guaranteed level of grid-services to users. According to the authors, this version of the grid-infrastructure development is consistent with the current trends of development of the digital science and will allow to equalize the maturity levels with national grid-infrastructures of other European countries.