Crowd computing to support EGI scientists

The International Desktop Grid Federation (IDGF) aims to collect scientists, IT operators, developers, etc. who are interested in Desktop Grid computing and related technologies. In the on-going EU Framework Programme 7 "International Desktop Grid Federation - Support Project" (IDGF-SP) there is a special focus on spreading the technology among institutes and universities by providing support in different areas like desktop grid installation, maintenance, application porting, dissemination and other topics. The members of IDGF-SP are therefore continuously maintaining and improving a network of volunteer and campus-wide BOINC projects to form a reference, production level infrastructure. The IDGF-SP infrastructure consists of volunteer and institutional BOINC projects, bridges to/from EGI (European Grid Infrastructure) type grids (e.g. gLite), cloud resources, science gateways, monitoring and accounting systems, and virtualization support for the volunteer resources. The infrastructure is currently open for EGI scientists through bridges. Several EGI communities are already utilizing volunteer resources with their own applications while the aim of the newly established EGI Virtual Team is to increase the number of these communities and success stories. The paper introduces the IDGF-SP infrastructure, its usage by the supported communities and some of the most interesting technical challenges of the integration to the EGI ecosystem. We will also show how the overall usage is moving towards crowd computing where human intelligence and other resources from citizens might be also utilized in scientific experiments.