SPECTRUM Community of Practice (SPECTRUMCoP)
Creating a connected community of scientists and infrastructure managers to work towards a mutual understanding of future needs, associated challenges and their possible solutions
The Challenge
The amount of data gathered, shared and processed in frontier research is set to increase steeply in the coming decade, leading to unprecedented data processing, simulation and analysis needs. In particular, High Energy Physics and Radio Astronomy are gearing up for groundbreaking instruments, necessitating infrastructures many times larger than the current capabilities. In this context, the EU-funded SPECTRUM project brings together leading European science organisations and e-Infrastructure providers to formulate a Strategic Research, Innovation, and Deployment Agenda (SRIDA) along with a Technical Blueprint for a European computer and data continuum. This collaborative effort is set to create an Exabyte-scale research data federation and compute continuum, fostering data-intensive scientific collaborations across Europe.
What is the SPECTRUMCoP?
The SPECTRUM Community of Practice (CoP) aims to create a connected community of scientists and infrastructure managers having a mutual understanding of future needs, associated challenges and their possible solutions.
The goal of the CoP is to serve as a discussion forum across the HEP and RA domains to identify common directions for the design and operations of future systems, agreed processing models and solutions, and to provide feedback on investment to funding agencies and policy makers.
SPECTRUMCoP Working Groups
WG1: Data Management and Access
Topics
- Data ManagementIncluding data location, movement, and registration.
- Data Access Protocols
- Data Archiving
- Security
Members 14
- Tommaso Boccali INFN-PI
- Gianpaolo Carlino INFN-NA
- Eric Fede IN2P3
- Chiara Ferrari CNRS, OCA
- Hanno Holties ASTRON
- Mario Lassnig CERN
- Paul Laycock University of Geneva
- Andrea Manzi EGI
- Luca Mascetti CERN
- Gonzalo Merino PIC
- Mihai Patrascoiu CERN
- Stefano Piano INFN
- Andrei Tsaregorodtsev CNRS, IN2P3
- Jeff Wagg OCA
WG2: Workflow Management and Organization
Topics
- Resource Discovery and Workflow Submission
- Resource Allocation
- Complex Workflowsincluding DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs), chain and more.
Members 15
- Giuseppe Andronico INFN
- Tommaso Boccali INFN-PI
- Chris Broekema ASTRON
- Chiara Ferrari CNRS, OCA
- Vanessa Hamar CNRS, IN2P3
- Marco Iacobelli ASTRON
- Gonzalo Merino PIC
- Emanuela Orrù ASTRON
- Andreu Pacheco Pages CERN
- Antonio Pérez-Calero Yzquierdo CIEMAT, PIC
- Stefano Piano INFN
- Andrea Piccinelli University of Notre Dame
- Daniele Spiga INFN-PG
- Andrei Tsaregorodtsev CNRS, IN2P3
- Jeff Wagg OCA
WG3: Compute Environment
Topics
- Expected Tools and ServicesDescribes the tools and services expected at centers, including virtualization and CVMFS (CernVM File System).
- Facility ExpectationsOutlines expectations for facilities, including workflow execution times (“be able to execute workflows xx hours long”), memory requirements (“nodes with at least YY GB RAM”), networking capabilities (“networking in/out at least at YY Mbps per core”) and virtualization.
- Edge ServicesDiscusses edge services needed to establish environment(s).
- Library ProvisioningDiscusses the minimal set of libraries and how to provide them, including virtualization, Spack, and module.
Members 16
- Giuseppe Andronico INFN
- Stefano Bagnasco INFN, ET, Virgo
- Tommaso Boccali INFN-PI
- Chris Broekema ASTRON
- Isabel Campos CSIC
- Daniele Cesini INFN
- Alessandro De Salvo INFN
- Sagar Dolas SURF
- Eric Fede IN2P3
- Chiara Ferrari CNRS, OCA
- Vanessa Hamar CNRS, IN2P3
- Kristen Lutz SURF
- Gonzalo Merino PIC
- Daniele Spiga INFN-PG
- Andrea Valassi CERN
- Jeff Wagg OCA
WG4: Software Tools
Topics
- Machine Learning Frameworks
- Multithreading Frameworks
- Multi-Node ToolsIncluding MPI (Message Passing Interface) and similar tools
- Compilers, toolchains, …
- Quantum computing tools and frameworks
- Code Management Practices
Members 11
- Giuseppe Andronico INFN
- Tommaso Boccali INFN-PI
- Isabel Campos CSIC
- Adriano Di Florio CERN
- Chiara Ferrari CNRS, OCA
- Attila Krasznahorkay CERN
- Graeme Andrew Stewart CERN
- Liliana Teodorescu Brunel
- Andrea Valassi CERN
- Jeff Wagg OCA
- Eric Wulff CERN
WG5: Scientific Use Cases
Topics
- Typical Use CasesDescribes typical use cases with quantitative descriptions.
- Requirements and Needs
- Best Practices CollectionGathers best practices and existing documents.
- Data Fluxes and Paths
Members 20
- Sergio Andreozzi EGI
- Giuseppe Andronico INFN
- Alberto Annovi INFN-PI
- Robert Beswick University of Manchester
- Tommaso Boccali INFN-PI
- Isabel Campos CSIC
- James Catmore University of Oslo
- Dino Cosmai University of Bari
- Sabine Crépé-Renaudin IN2P3
- Nichol Cunningham SKAO
- Leonardo Giusti University of Milano-Bicocca
- Claudio Grandi INFN, CMS, WLCG review team
- Haili Hu SURF
- Marco Iacobelli ASTRON
- Emanuela Orrù ASTRON
- Susanne Pfalzner Jülich
- David Southwick CERN
- Jeff Wagg OCA
- Stefanie Walch-Gassner University of Cologne
- Eric Wulff CERN
WG6: Facilities
Topics
- HPC CentersDiscusses drivers and future directions of HPC centers.
- Access to Quantum Computing Hardware
- Access to Commercial and Public Clouds
- SustainabilityExamines economic and carbon footprint aspects.
- SecurityIncluding access and translation from global SSO to local credentials
Members 22
- Fabio Affinito Cineca
- Giuseppe Andronico INFN
- Concezio Bozzi INFN, LHCb, JENA-HPC
- Isabel Campos CSIC
- Marco Cè University of Milano-Bicocca
- Daniele Cesini INFN
- Luis Cifuentes FZJ
- Luca Dell’Agnello INFN CNAF-T1
- Sagar Dolas SURF
- Torsten Ensslin Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
- Chiara Ferrari CNRS, OCA
- Hans-Christian Hoppe FZJ
- Florian Janetzko FZJ
- Kristen Lutz SURF
- Luca Mascetti CERN
- Gonzalo Merino PIC
- Mihai Patrascoiu CERN
- Michele Pepe INFN-MIB
- Susanne Pfalzner Jülich
- Liliana Teodorescu Brunel
- Jeff Wagg OCA
- Rod Walker Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
The SPECTRUMCoP space on Confluence
The community has its own space on EGI's Confluence. It holds the Charter, the FAQ, a page for each working group, the notes of the plenary meetings and an archive of the project years (2024-2026).
Its knowledge base, the Document Repository, collects papers, presentations and meeting summaries shared by members, each with its authors, abstract and the working groups it concerns.
Related
D4.1 Community of Practice and sustainability plan - Final report
The Community of Practice's final report: how it ran in the project's second phase, the public consultation it carried out, its input to the Technical Blueprint and the SRIDA, and its plan for the years after SPECTRUM.
D3.1 Community of Practice - Interim report
The document describes the approach to creating a community of practice for HEP and RA involved in SPECTRUM, it summarises the performed consultation activities and presents the collected knowledge.
Experts Meeting Report
The SPECTRUM Experts Meeting (Barcelona, 18-19 February 2026) reviewed the key findings from the public consultation on the Technical Blueprint and the Strategic Research, Innovation and Deployment Agenda (SRIDA) for a European compute and data continuum.