MTA SZTAKI is playing a key role as research institute in Grid technologies. It is a funding member of the Hungarian Grid Competence Centre, which was established in 2003 in order to coordinate the related grid activities in Hungary. The Laboratory of Parallel and Distributed Systems (LPDS) participates in the CoreGRID Network of Excellence as well as in all phases of the largest Grid infrastructure project (EGEE) serving as a regional training centre (from 2004), as the assistant leader in training (from 2007), and the coordinator of application porting centers (from 2008).

LPDS is the coordinator of the recently launched European EDGeS project with the aim of bridging service Grid and desktop Grid infrastructures and supporting their user communities and industrial applications. LPDS also participates in several national projects (HAGRID, ADMeTOXGrid, JGRID) and international collaborations (CancerGRID) that aim the usage of Grid technology at various application fields.

Our mission is two-fold in Grid research; to provide efficient software development tools and high-level services for harvesting the most widespread Grid infrastructures in an interoperable way (P-GRADE Grid Portal), and besides the supported and dedicated Grid infrastructures, to offer easy-to-maintain middleware solutions enabling the cost-efficient shared platforms for complex applications (SZTAKI Desktop Grid).

LPDS Grid research is focused on Grid computing environments. Its major products are:

• P-GRADE Grid portal
• gUSE
• SZTAKI Desktop Grid

LPDS has long running experience in establishing Grid infrastructures. It contributed to the construction of the Hungarian ClusterGrid infrastructure developed and maintained by NIIF and has recently established the HunGrid Grid infrastructure with RMKI and ELTE. HunGrid is the Hungarian VO of the EGEE Grid extended with P-GRADE Grid portal and Mercury Grid monitor. LPDS played a leading role in the establishment of the SEE-Grid infrastructure, too.

LPDS as the Central-European Regional Training Centre of EGEE plays active role in providing Grid trainings in the CE and SEE regions. Members of LPDS have given Grid tutorials at various international conferences and run Grid courses at several universities in Hungary and Europe. LPDS has also organized several industrial Grid courses and hosted Grid Summer Schools in 2005 and 2006 and 2007. In 2008 LPDS organize the ISSGC08 Grid Summer School, the DAPSYS 2008 Grid Conference and various Grid related training events.

LPDS significantly contributes to promote dissemination of Grid computing results. Prof. Dr. Peter Kacsuk, head of the laboratory is the editor-in-chief (with Ian Foster) of the Journal of Grid Computing . He also was a guest co-editor of the Grid thematic issue of ERCIM News No. 59.