The LCG service is available to all members of the LHC experiment collaborations.  In addition, through the EGEE project, many other applications and their user communities can make use of the grid infrastructure.  However, since the initial formalities are somewhat different, LHC experiment users should read this page, other application users should refer to the EGEE introductory information.

All registered LHC experiment collaborators will be able to use the service after following a simple registration procedure.  Note that some steps (for example obtaining a digital certificate) can sometimes take a few days, so it is important that a potential user completes this registration process in good time before he needs to use the service.

Instructions (a user guide, and example usage scenarios) are available to help get started.  The user guide is comprehensive and is essential reading for all new users.

Each of the 4 LHC experiments has a contact person in the grid deployment experiment support team (support-eis@cern.ch)   However, normally these contacts provide support in terms of help with integrating experiment software with the grid middleware.  For new users, and general support problems use should be made of the user support portal at FZK, where documentation, FAQs, and helpdesk facilities are available. 

User support portal:

The link to use is http://www.ggus.org.  Note however, that use of this portal requires a valid grid certificate be loaded in the user's web browser.  Instructions on how to do that are included in the registration procedures.