Cloud Computing, Internet of Services and Advanced Software Engineering
The domains of Internet of Services and Software Engineering are not uniform over the region. Armenia, Russia and Ukraine could be considered as technology providers. Armenia, for instance, is deeply involved in outsourcing market, selling software development services in EU and USA. Russia, being active outsourcing player, has big internal software market and is the major software vendor for neighboring countries with high level of Russian language penetration. Other countries are mostly concentrated on the internal market or deployment of imported technologies.
Construction of Software Engineering tools and development infrastructures is listed as a critical technology of the Russian Federation. Russia has profound background in both applied software development and systems development.
Latest initiatives of the Russian Government on Software Engineering, including creation of the National Software Platform, manifest the intention to replace imported software in state governance and enterprises with open-source alternatives. Selection of open-source products opens the way to unique mutually beneficial cooperation between EU and Russia. Open-source software does not have borders, it easily allows for collaborative development and reuse in various scenarios.
Establishment of the National Software Platform provides an opportunity to set up cooperation at the level of big industrial/research consortia that ETP actually are. Such cooperation might result in further clarification of Strategic Agendas and Implementation Plans.
Distinguished R&D institutions:
- Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Program Systems Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences
- Institute of Informatics Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The introduction of the modern technologies in the fixed and mobile networks by the companies which are responsible for networks in Armenia, the wide range of investments as well as professional services and innovative products continuously contribute to the improvement of telecommunication infrastructure creating competitive advantages and exciting opportunities for all their customers. Armenian networks based on satellite and fiber optic channels are in the process of expansion to cover the whole territory of Armenia. The companies will provide innovative high-bandwidth satellite services, broadband Internet broadcast and data services throughout Armenia. The programming companies can offer complete solutions for e-commerce, database connectivity, web publishing, security, encryption, communications, as well as Multimedia design services, online polling systems, competitions, Olympiads, auctions, search and statistical systems.
In the different Institutes of NAS RA and ICT companies of Armenia the activities of scientific and technological research and development of systems for IP telephony, Network Diagnostics and other areas in Telecommunication are being conducted. ICT companies develop a comprehensive portfolio of hardware and software products for mission-critical private and public networks, business communications over the Internet. The offered products and solutions based on modern technologies address the network and service requirements of local exchange carriers operating wire line, wireless and mobile communication networks. The portfolio includes Measurement and control systems for various distribution networks, communication security systems for government agencies
Belarus has a critical mass of competences in supercomputers and high performance computing (HPC) systems design and implementation, its applications to various needs of natural sciences and national industries. Now in Belarus realize the state scientific-engineering programme GALS-Technologies. It is designed to develop and implement information technology in industry to support the whole lifecycle of product development and production. It includes the use of contemporary CAD systems, technological works preparation, reengineering of works sequence, works management, general automation of the management of the enterprise as a whole, technical procedures of product acceptance and other aspects of product design, manufacturing, maintenance and utilization.
A cluster supercomputer family SKIF was first created in United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (UIIP NASB) in cooperation with Russian scientific centres during the period 1999-2004. Following a successful evaluation of the initial stage of supercomputer development in Belarus, a new programme - Development and implementation of science intensive computer technologies "TRIADA" - was approved and started in 2005. Three project directions are specified in the programme:
- Investigation, verification and adaptation of advanced foreign computer technologies on the basis of Russian and Belarusian high-performance multi-processors computer systems;
- Development and implementation of new science intensive technologies on the basis of high-performance multi-processor computer systems;
- Development of the system software and hardware on the basis of high-performance multi-processors computers produced in Russia and Belarus complying science intensive computer technologies.
Now Belarus organizations willing to open access to their facilities to European organizations.
The European e-Science Grid infrastructure aims to exploit the sharing of more computing resources (including distributed supercomputing), scientific instrumentation and data facilities across multiple scientific disciplines. While trust and confidence are of concern there is also a clearly identified lack of interoperability between the various infrastructures deployed worldwide. Belarus R&D centers have developed strong expertise in network architecture, security and are largely involved in open projects.
It is expected that EU-Belarus collaboration can incite new success stories with global standardization outcomes.
Belarus has a critical mass of competences in Internet of Services and Future Internet. In Belarus in this field work such organization as United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Hi-Tech Park and other.
We have many reasons to raise the importance of EU-Belarus joint projects in this field. EU scientists have strong theoretical background in this field. Belarus IT researchers possess very strong software engineering skills, which has a great impact on rapidly proving the conceptions in applied research areas.
Powerful supercomputers have been developed lately in a number of Ukrainian Universities. These supercomputers allow solving of complex scientific and applied problems that require significant IT resources. The most recognized Ukrainian institutions working in this area are the following: National Technical University of Ukraine "Kiev Polytechnic Institute" and Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics NAS of Ukraine which installed the cluster architecture supercomputer (CAS). Both supercomputers are a part of the Ukrainian Grid-infrastructure through the network "Ukrainian research and academic network".
First computing cluster that consisted of four workstations and allowed parallel computations on nodes of sub-local net-work was developed at Information and Computer Centre of National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv.
The clusters are inter-connected by high performance optical fiber network UARnet which connected also to international nodes of Russia and Poland.
This area is recommended for EU-Ukraine cooperation because:
- Development of powerful supercomputers allows solving complex scientific and applied problems.
- Critical mass of researchers from well recognized institutions in Ukraine are engaged into this research area,
- Development of the National Grid infrastructure increases the possibilities of the Ukrainian universities to collaborate with the EU counterparts.
- Joint EU-Ukraine R&D projects will contribute to development of complex projects that require significant IT resources.
Increasing penetration if broadband Internet access raises new challenges to Ukrainian ICT R&D teams. The vastness of the territory of Ukraine demands unique large scale networking infrastructures. It calls for new communication media, new security challenges and trust infrastructures.
There are some hard reasons to raise the importance of EU-Ukraine joint projects in this field. Firstly this area has a great potential related to growing interoperability between infrastructures. Secondly, EU scientists attesting very strong theoretical background need to reinforce the "proof of the concept" level and validation of research results. Ukrainian IT researchers possess strong software engineering skills, which has a great impact on rapidly proving the conceptions in applied research areas. Finally, the joint next-generation IT projects can incite a huge interest of business investors requiring for quite obvious demonstrations of success and for rapidity of technology commercialization.
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