Future trends in distributed infrastructures - The Nordic Tier-1 example

Distributed computing infrastructures have a long history, starting with pools of PCs and clusters three decades ago, briefly passing a stage of HPC Grids, and now converging to fully virtualised facilities. The Nordic Tier-1, prototype of which was launched back in 2003 to serve CERN needs, is a small-scale model of a distributed infrastructure, and thus an interesting case for studying experience and future trends in a controlled environment. The talk will present an overview of the current trends in distributed computing and data storage from the perspective of the distributed Nordic Tier-1, covering a variety of aspects, from technological to political ones.