For the first time, Grid'5000 users were invited this year to take part in a challenge to showcase tools and environments demonstrating the deployment of distributed or Grid middleware on Grid'5000. Teams were expected to demonstrate their know-how in the deployment of Grid (Glite, XtreemOS, Globus to name a few) or Cloud middleware. Participants were evaluated according to the following criteria:

1. Deployment time, and number of sites and nodes deployed
2. Complexity of the deployed middleware, and realism of Grid'5000 usage scenario for this middleware
3. Ease of deployment by other users (documentation and script repository availability)
4. Interest of the deployed middleware for the community
5. Elegance of the solution

The Grid'5000 Spring School challenge winner is Pierre Riteau, who demonstrated the deployment of a sky computing environment based on nimbus in 31mn !
The runner-up is Marko Obrovac, who demonstrated scripts enabling the deployment of XtreemOS on Grid'5000. The script brought up an linux-ssi favour version of XtreemOS putting a virtual SMP of 156 processors online in less than 30mn.
Each win an ipod touch for their entry.