1. Evolving EGI Business Models
Sy Holsinger
Strategy and Policy Officer, EGI.eu
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

2. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
Content
Summary of activities over last year
Evolving business model and alignment with the EGI strategy
Opportunities for the various components of the EGI ecosystem
Summary and Next steps
Questions for discussion
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

3. Timeline of Activities to Date
EGI Sustainability Plan (D2.7) – March 2011
Outline of EGI’s ecosystem and services, potential business models
Business Model Workshop at EGI TF’11 – Sept 2011
Introduction of business models for EGI and open discussion
DCI Project Sustainability Meeting – Oct 2011
Participants: EMI, IGE, StratusLab, Venus-C, EDGI, SIENA
User General Sustainability Workshop - Jan 2012
3-day workshop: User Community Service Needs, Service Development, Sustaining EGI community breakouts
EGI Strategy Plan (D2.30)
In open consultation:
Evolving the EGI Business Model (D2.18)
In progress; CF’12 workshops to directly support document
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

4. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
EGI2020 Strategy
Towards the digital ERA through 4 key investment areas:
Community & Coordination
Promoting competitive cooperation, collaboration and interaction for increased visibility and results.
Operational Infrastructure
Should be re-used and adapted to integrate domain-specific services and institutional private clouds into a uniform infrastructure.
Federated Cloud Infrastructure
EGI needs to move to a model where research communities and individuals are easily able to personalise their e-Infrastructure environments and a federation of private clouds is being prototyped to deliver this capability.
Virtual Research Environments
Will allow researchers to deploy the environments they need where they need to.
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Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

5. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
EGI Ecosystem
National & European
Private/Commercial
NGIs
Resource Centres
EMI
IGE
SAGA
OpenNebula
National & European
Large & Small
EGI.eu
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

6. Refactoring for EU 2020 Collaboration Services Community Platforms
Facilitate synergies between Research Communities in the online European Research Area
Community Platforms
Domain-specific access to distributed resources. Promote sharing and reuse through a ‘Platform Store’ in a diverse ecosystem of platform integrators, deployers & operators
Community Platform 2
Community Platform 4
Community
Distribution (e.g. UMD)
Community Platform 1
(e.g. ASTRA space science)
Community Platform 3
(e.g. Speech Processing)
Infrastructure Platform
Consistent federated IaaS access to physical resources through Virtualisation
Physical Resources:
Public and commercial mix
Different countries (35+) and admin domains (350+)
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

7. Platform Driven EGI Infrastructure Platform Training platform
Federated AAI
Community Platforms
Cloud Management services
Brokered HPC
Messaging, Monitoring, Accounting and Information Discovery
Classic HPC
Data-intensive HTC
Pilot-job HTC
EGI Collaboration Platform
EGI Basic
Federated identity infra.
Compute
Data movement
Data/Storage access
VM Image Sharing
Research group membership
Service Desk
Meeting planning
MS510:
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

8. Business Models Around What?
use
operate
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Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

9. Structuring a Business Model
Problem
Identify top 3 problems that need to be solved
Client Segments
List the client that potential solutions could and should satisfy
Value Proposition
Short, clear, compelling message that turns an unaware visitor into an interested prospect
Solution
Any identified problem should have a corresponding solution for the client
Channels
List the path to reach and interact with the clients
Cost Structure
List fixed and variable costs
Revenue Streams
List sources of revenue in order to cover the costs
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Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

10. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
Examples #
Service Provider
Service Consumer
Relationship 1.
EGI Partnership
Researchers (and groups)
B2C 2.
EGI.eu
NGIs/EIROs
B2B 3.
NGI 4.
Technology Provider 5.
Platform Operator
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

11. EGI Partnership -> Researchers
Problem
Lack of a generic infrastructure open to whole European Research Area
High technical barriers and lack of user flexibility in running environments
Difficult to share problem solving reusable solutions
Client Segments
Researchers and their groupings: individual researchers, research collaborations, VRCs
Value Proposition
Provide uniform access to large scale computing, storage and data resources across Europe allowing researchers to share information securely, collaborate with colleagues worldwide and manipulate and analyse complex data faster and more efficiently in ways otherwise not possible.
Solution
Implementation of a Federated Cloud Infrastructure
Creation of Frameworks to build Virtual Research Environments
EGI store
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Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

12. EGI Partnership -> Researchers
Channels
Coordination and Community Building through EGI.eu and NGIs
Helpdesk
Campus or Community Champions for local level contact
Online media -> website, blog, wiki, newsletter, social media, etc.
Cost Structure
IT infrastructure, staff, operational costs, dissemination material…
Revenue Streams
Indirect from funding bodies
EU funding for innovation
National funding for operations and maintenance
Recurring budget line item from local gov’t
EGI2020 Strategy Impact
All 4 strategic areas:
Only through this partnership will EGI persist for decades to come
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Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

13. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
EGI.eu -> NGIs
Problem
Coordination of service delivery across multiple national infrastructures
Lack of community awareness about the EGI opportunity
Fragmentation between European e-Infrastructure providers
Client Segments
National Coordination bodies
Value Proposition
Provides European coordination and management services providing strategic direction, policy and planning for the federation of national infrastructures across Europe including visibility on an EC and Int’l level
Solution
Provide high-quality leadership, governance structures, marketing and communication, strategic planning and policy development
Build communities and collaboration through workshops, forums and collaboration tools
Integrate European e-Infrastructures through strategic partnerships
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14. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
EGI.eu -> NGIs
Channels
Personal relationship between EGI.eu staff and NGIs (e.g. NILs, OpMan)
Management and coordination bodies (e.g. Council, TCB, OMB, UCB)
Whitepapers and reports (e.g. analysis, technical roadmapping)
Promotional material, community events, social media
Cost Structure
Staff, development of collaboration tools, office space and materials
Splitting between operations, maintenance and development (MS115)
Revenue Streams
Direct: membership fees from members
To cover operational + maintenance
Indirect: EC funding for European-wide
objectives (e.g. EU2020 Strategy)
To cover development & innovation
EGI2020 Strategy Impact
Community & Coordination: Promoting competitive cooperation, collaboration and interaction at local, national and European levels for increased visibility and results
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

15. NGIs -> Researchers
Problem
High technical barriers and lack of user flexibility in running environments.
Slow resource allocation process to meet the needs of data-intensive researchers or lack of on-demand model.
Client Segments
Researchers and their groupings: individual researchers, research collaborations, VRCs.
Value Proposition
Provide a structured means for provisioning computing, data and storage services for the benefit of data-intensive researchers.
Solution
Consultancy on customising Virtual Research Environments.
Federated cloud services and platform operators to deploy and operate community platforms.
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

16. NGIs -> Researchers
Channels
Helpdesk
Campus or Community Champions for local level contact
Online media -> website, blog, wiki, newsletter, social media, etc.
Consultancy
Cost Structure
IT infrastructure, staff, operational costs,
dissemination material…
Revenue Streams
Indirect:
Fixed budget line item in local
National funded research projects
Structural funds
EC funded projects answering European priorities
Direct:
Paid support, training, consultancy
EGI2020 Strategy Impact
4 strategic areas:
Community and Coordination, Operational infrastructure, Federated cloud, Virtual Research Environments.
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Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

17. Technology Providers -> EGI.eu
Problem
Need for open-source software and standards-based components to federate IT infrastructures
Need for timely support of bug fixing
Client Segments
EGI.eu
Value Proposition
Free or inexpensive solutions coupled with trusted brand name that can offer maintenance and development services across many communities
Solution
Develop software components to be an infrastructure as a service across organisational boundaries
Legally binding SLAs with defined response times
Community Specific: Extensive knowledge and expertise in community related needs to provide dedicated services and solutions
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

18. Technology Providers -> EGI.eu
Channels
Helpdesk and bug tracker
Website, wiki and knowledge base
Social media
Cost Structure
Staff, IT infrastructure for development and testing,
documentation…
Revenue Streams
Direct: Paid support service based on SLA
Indirect: Dedicated innovation projects (National/European)
Hybrid: In-kind effort from community buy-in
EGI2020 Strategy Impact
Operational Infrastructure, Federated cloud infrastructure, Virtual Research Environments:
Supplying the various software and services needed throughout the community.
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

19. Platform Operators -> Researchers
Problem
Heavy burden of operating infrastructure that distracts from core business
Lack of technical skills to solve IT problems
Client Segments
Researchers
Value Proposition
Technical expertise to operate domain-specific
platforms on behalf of research communities
Solution
Operate the community platform chosen by the user
Timely support based on SLA
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

20. Platform Operators -> Researchers
Channels
Helpdesk
Forum, website, wiki and knowledge base
Social media
Cost Structure
Staff, local IT infrastructure for support services
Revenue Streams
Direct: Paid support service based on SLA
Indirect: Dedicated innovation projects (National/European)
Hybrid: In-kind effort from community buy-in
EGI2020 Strategy Impact
Federated cloud infrastructure, Virtual Research Environments:
Operating higher-level services on behalf community.
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

21. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
Conclusions
Summary
Various community meetings held on the topic over last year
A vision and strategy for EGI towards 2020 produced
EGI Ecosystem correlated to evolving services
A number of business models further defined for community
Next Steps
Provide feedback to the EGI Strategy Plan (D2.30)
In open consultation
Finalise Evolving the EGI Business Model (D2.18)
In progress; CF’12 workshops to directly support document
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012

22. Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012
Thank you!
20/09/2011
Evolving EGI Business Model – EGI CF Munich - March 2012