EGI Functions (old)
From EGI Knowledge Base
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This area is dedicated to the definition, discussion and refinement of the functions to be fulfilled by EGI. A few lists have been proposed, which are being evaluated, discussed, and studied in the context of various needs and rationales. These will converge into a general schema of functionalities to be implemented in EGI.
An initial list of functions was sent to NGI representatives by the EGEE project as part of an NGI survey in late 2006. As of October 2007, these functions have been rewritten to some extent, resulting in the following list:
[edit] Operation of a reliable Grid infrastructure
Grids have proven to be an excellent way of federating resources across computer centres of varying sizes into much larger quasi-homogeneous infrastructures. This matches well with the needs of international science, allow-ing resources at participating institutes to meet the needs of the entire collaboration. This in turn adds value to the individual sites, leading to a positive feedback situation. Although some / many of the day to day operational aspects are expected to be performed by the National Grids and indeed the overall effort can be reduced by designing and deploying services with a view to resilience and fault tolerance – it is a truism to state that some overall coordination will be required if a pan-national infrastructure is to be achieved. This coordination is needed both by participating NGIs and by the application areas / VOs that they support. It is expected to include both short-term (day-to-day, week-by-week) operational issues, as well as longer term aspects, including the (joint) organisation of operations workshops, maintenance of best practices / procedures / standards and so forth.
[edit] Coordination of middleware development and standardization
This function is arguably necessary in EGI as no middleware stack is mature now and in 2 years time most standardization work will still have to be done. Enhancements in steady state will be needed as old VOs need to evolve their modus operandi (most users are researchers who are expected to evolve and keep on the cutting edge of technology) and new VOs may need some new functionality. The VOs that include users of different middleware stacks will be interested in standardization, as well as the NGIs that support more than 1 stack. The users/VOs and the EGI "operations branch" which need specific enhancements in performance, reliability and/or functionality are also interested in the development activity. The "hardening" of components for production mentioned in one of the middleware use cases is a specific relevant case of development
[edit] Development and operation of build and test systems
This function is needed in some form to provide a service to help software developers, managers and users to better manage complexity and improve the quality of their software.
[edit] Components selection, validation, integration and deployment
[edit] Mechanisms for resource provisioning to Virtual Organisations
This function does not strictly exist at this moment. It has some relation to the "initial resources" function from the earlier survey.
[edit] Application Support
Currently, adapting an existing application to the Grid environment is a nontrivial exercise that requires an in depth understanding not only of the Grid computing paradigm but also of the computing model of the application in question. Until such time as Grid computing is much more widely understood, good application support is required not only to attract new communities to the Grid (and there are clearly many that could benefit from it) but also to support existing user communities.
[edit] Training efforts
[edit] Outreach and Dissemination
The goal of this function is for the European Grid services to be known and better understood, and to attract (potential) user communities which could benefit from these services. It is not clear that dissemination per se is needed in EGI. What is needed is a support activity for some of the more technical functions, consisting mainly of website maintenance / some graphics, PR/media relations, broad "scientific" publishing (e.g. SciAm), and perhaps a training liaison to bring some knowledge of "what Grids can do" to a wider public.
[edit] Industry take-up
- Main article: Industry take-up
EGI long term sustainability requires a persistent activity aimed at increasing participation of the private sector in the European Grid Infrastructure, bringing additional financial resources to the initiative. The specific business model has to be defined. How can private companies enter in the e-Science Grid Infrastructure? Which counterpart has to be used? And, is the EGI an e-Science Grid Infrastructure (like Géant) or a mixed use (private & public, like the electricity distribution power grid) infrastructure?
[edit] Contribution to the Open Grid Forum (OGF) and other standards bodies
Insofar as EGI has a role in operating the European e-Infrastructure and overseeing related R&D and standardization efforts, it makes sense that it should also have a role in relation to international standards bodies such as OGF.
What exactly this role should be remains to be defined, but ideally it should not overlap (excessively) with preexisting activities. As a central body, EGI lends itself as a locus for tracking the existence and activities of all the European standards working groups; the related networking activity or liaison office could act as
- a contact point for standardization bodies, to provide information on these working groups; and
- a proactive element, initiating and maintaining live communications with relevant responsive counterparts among the R&D groups.
[edit] Related Use Cases
UC-KnowARC, UC-NGI-D-standardization,
[edit] Policy, Strategy, e-IRG
[edit] Representation of European Grid efforts, International Cooperation, and ESFRI
[edit] Security
Security spans a wide range of topics, from low level computer forensics over middleware security to the highest level policies negotiated between institutions. It ranges from immediate incident responses to adapting to advances in technology which may be years from deployment.
Security also covers social aspects such as usability and how users interact with technology and security measures. This challenge is all the greater with the expanding user base. Many of the current Grid communities accept the learning curve of learning the security measures of the Grid. However, as the usage expands to wider less technical communities, usability of security measures urgently needs addressing. Set the security bar too high and users will try to circumvent it. The challenge is to implement technology which enhances usability without compromising security.
