Mission
CS3MESH4EOSC is a 3-year EU-funded project that addresses the challenges of the fragmentation of file and application services, digital sovereignty and the application of FAIR principles in the everyday practice of researchers.
Initially, 7 major data services will be combined into ScienceMesh - a federated service mesh providing a frictionless collaboration platform for hundreds of thousands of users (researchers, engineers, students and staff). The service will offer easy access to data across institutional and geographical boundaries. The infrastructure will be gradually expanded and offered to the entire eduaction and research community in Europe and beyond.
The initial service will connect SURFdrive, CERNBox, PSNCBox, CloudSTOR, Sciebo, owncloud@CESNET, SWITCHdrive and ScienceData.
The CS3MESH4EOSC project will design, build and deploy the necessary technology to achieve this.
Specifically the project will promote vendor-neutral APIs and protocols, and follow an open-source approach to software development and service delivery - thus creating a platform for a data-centric application ecosystem in the European Open Science Cloud.
Impact
Researchers will gain access to a global collaboration platform which will be seamlessly integrated in their current working environments. Collaboration with users and groups at other institutions will be just one click away and readily accessible. FAIR-abiding data archiving, sharing and publication will be available to all.
Institutions will gain the freedom to choose their storage and application providers without compromising on functionality and without the risk of creating disconnected service silos for their users.
Service managers and site administrators will gain a streamlined and well documented environment for stable service operation at scale. They will benefit from the cumulated knowledge, operational experience and support of a large community.
The tech Industry in Europe and beyond will gain the opportunity to extend their current user base and ensure integration with the growing and evolving service ecosystem of the European Open Science Cloud.
Early adopters
The project builds on unique experience developed in the CS3 community. All current and future CS3 participants are welcome to join the infrastructure and participate to its development. Specifically, collaboration with storage and application vendors will actively be pursued.
If you're a service provider interested in joining ScienceMesh, or a researcher or tool builder interested in deploying applications on ScienceMesh, get in touch.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 863353.