Diana Cresti, INFN dcresti@pd.infn.it User Community Services in the European Grid Infrastructure 29 Jan 2009 – Paris, France Diana Cresti, INFN dcresti@pd.infn.it

Contents EGI General Concepts EGI main stakeholders and Management Structure User Community Services Specialised Support Centres User Forum Examples of SSC organisation 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

EGI General Concepts Visions and Objectives of EGI To ensure that Europe capitalises fully on its large investment in grid infrastructures, middleware development and applications, the objectives of the future EGI are: Ensure the long-term sustainability of the European e-infrastructure Coordinate the integration and interaction between National Grid Infrastructures Operate the European level of the production grid infrastructure for a wide range of scientific disciplines to link National Grid Infrastructures Coordinate middleware development and standardisation Advise National and European Funding Agencies in establishing their programmes for future software developments based on agreed user needs and development standards Take into account developments made by national e-science projects which were aimed at supporting diverse communities See http://web.eu-egi.eu/about/objectives/ 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Vision based on NGI consensus EGI Blueprint endorsed by the NGIs on 20 Jan 2009 See http://www.eu-egi.org/blueprint 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

EGI.org vs. EGI EGI.org is the central office in charge of most collaboration tasks – EGI.org cannot sustain a production grid infrastructure without the larger EGI environment The EGI “environment” presupposes that all practical activities at the European level are performed by NGIs as International tasks There is a budgeted amount of effort expected for the NGI international tasks, some of which is designated as User Community Services (UCS) 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

EGI Stakeholders NGI2 NGI1 EGI.org … NGIs NGIn 29 Jan 2009 Research Teams Research Institutes NGI2 NGI1 EGI.org NGIn … NGIs Resource Centres 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Research Teams, VOs, User Communities VOB2 VOZ VOA VOB1 VOB3 User Community A User Community B … User Community Z Researchers / ResTeams Research Institutes 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

EGI Representation EGI.org will have bodies for these stakeholders to communicate at the management level NGIS  EGI Council Associate members (CERN, ESA, …) User Communities  User Forum Representatives from extra-european NGIs 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

The EGI Management Structure Non-voting Representatives Chair of UFSC, extra-EU NGIs, … Members NGI1, NGI2, NGI3, … NGIn Associate Members CERN, EBI, ESA, … User Forum Steering Committee (UFSC) EGI Council EGI.org EGI Director CTO Development CAO Admin & PR Development Group Administration & PR Group Operations Group UCO User Coord User Comm Services COO Operations Advisory Committees e.g. Middleware Coordination Board (MCB) 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

EGI User Community Services (UCS) Examples: Gathering requirements from the user communities and providing efficient channels for their representation within EGI. E.g.: http://knowledge.eu-egi.eu/index.php/User_Requirements Carrying out a review process to integrate useful “external” software – an extension of the EGEE RESPECT program Maintaining a European Grid Application Database – e.g. http://grid.ct.infn.it/egee_applications Establishing technical collaborations with the large European Infrastructure projects (e.g. ESFRI) Providing “umbrella” services for collaborating projects Establishing Science Gateways that expose common tools and services (e.g. workflow engines, web services, semantic annotation) Organising User Forum meetings and topical meetings for specific user communities. Providing services for new communities – e.g. “Front desk” services, VO creation counseling, etc. Ensuring that the user communities and grid administrators are provided with high quality documentation and training services. For details: http://knowledge.eu-egi.eu/index.php/UCS_Tasks 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Specialised Support Centres SSCs are basically a way to organise user community services at a central level by clustering the NGI international tasks SSCs do not require full NGI consensus to be established In the EGI proposal, which we will begin drafting in June 2009, the first SSCs will be proposed, based on work by EGEE and collaborating user communities (this means you!) In the future, SSC proposals will be evaluated by the User Forum Steering Committee and approved by EGI Council SSCs should interact closely with the central EGI.org UCS team (described in the EGI Blueprint) See also http://knowledge.eu-egi.eu/index.php/Specialised_Support_Centres 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

SSC Guidelines - draft Rights: Responsibilities: EGI will provide resources to the SSCs - in particular manpower. SSCs will have representation in the EGI Council, middleware coordination group, and the EGI.org directorate. The SSCs will have the ability to feed their technical and non-technical requirements into EGI. Expect to have access to training and documentation. Expect that SSCs will have access to resources and to centralized services, such as help desks, central grid services, operations help, middleware help, etc. Expect to have forums for SSC user communities and SSC managers to discuss with each other. Responsibilities: The SSC must have a cohesive community behind it that is able to take ownership of the SSC and to drive its evolution. The SSC must have a European-level existence follow the defined EGI policies. The SSCs will report facts and figures about their use of EGI in order to help EGI (and its funding agencies) understand the scope of the work accomplished with EGI. The SSCs are expected to operate transparently allowing a clear view of the SSC's activities and making the list of provided services available to the full EGI community. [R&R] SSCs are expected to be “stable” entities. 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Middleware and Software Issues EGI is assumed to provide support and maintenance to current middleware components from three stacks: ARC, UNICORE, and gLite No development is envisioned under EGI “project” funding – this includes middleware and any other software (e.g. high-level tools, Applications) gLite, for instance, is establishing a consortium; funding for development is the responsibility of this consortium What is within the domain of EGI funding is the work of the Middleware Coordination Board and the continuation of RESPECT and other activities aimed at commissioning new developments. Thus an SSC – as an EGI entity – can make recommendations for new development proposals Furthermore, EGI (in my opinion) should support lines of funding for new developments 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

The EGI User Forum EGI User Forum User Forum Steering Committee - UFSC SSC1 SSC2 SSC3 SSCn SSC SSC SSC SSC SSC User Technical Support (e.g. USAG) EGI Middleware Coordination Board - MCB MW OPS UCS 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Example of a Large SSC and main central interfaces EGI general SSC X EGI User Forum Steering Committee SSC Chair (UF delegate) Other UC Svces: “RESPECT” App DB Wikis, repositories Portals, gateways Grid Planning Board UCS OPS MW EGI.org MCB (Grid Planning) GP Rep User Tech Support Dir Usr Sup Ops EGI User Tech Support Group (e.g. USAG) SSC Front Desk 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Example of a small SSC (1/2) Purpose: provide “umbrella” services for a particular user community: Civil Protection (CP) Three projects have been working (in part) on relevant services: Project A: collecting and analysing CP requirements Project B: Data interoperability in the Earth Sciences Project C: development of tools for remote control of instrumentation These projects have signed MoUs to establish services for the CP community Project A has ended; it has generated useful info tools – wikis, repositories, a CP portal There is a CP VO, mostly used for demonstration purposes 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Example of a small SSC (2/2) There is a dedicated OGF working group which has produced a set of standards, the Open Geospatial Consortium Web Services – OWS Two OWS implementations have been produced and two more are in the pipeline Project C is currently working on a related implementation: Sensor Observation Service A small SSC – perhaps 2 FTEs – could be established to provide continuity to Project A tools, possibly provide some support to the CP VO, represent the CP community in EGI, support the OGF working group, integrate Project C tools via a RESPECT-type process, help disseminate results to the international community 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

The SSC Network – a First Sketch UFSC EGI.org Earth Sciences SSC Life Sciences SSC Umbrella services for small projects Project D Biodiversity CP SSC OGF working group Representation Gateway Proj C tools Drug Discovery group Collab group bio infrastr Project B ES data interop & repositories Project C ES remote instrument Med Imaging group Project A CP reqs Project F Drug Discovery 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

EGI Timetable EGI Blueprint finalised 19 Dec ’08; see progress at http://web.eu-egi.eu/MaKaC/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=75 D3.2: EGI Functions 2nd draft (cf. D3.1) due Feb ’09 D5.5: EGI Transition due Mar ’09 EGI.org location established Mar ’09 EGI.org Director appointed Mar-Apr ’09 Other personnel discussed during this time as well, also within NGIs Prepare to make concrete proposals for SSCs at EGEE User Forum in Catania Begin writing EGI Proposal in May-June ‘09 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France

Notes One SSC or many 29 Jan 2009 Paris, France