UCS Tasks
From EGI Knowledge Base
The tasks listed here the result of an overview of the kinds of tasks typically fulfilled in a European-level project such as EGEE, plus a few additions motivated by the plan to build EGI science gateways and to support an increasingly diverse user community.
Thus the "NGI" column below should be understood as indicating the proposed NGI "international" tasks, and not the entire range of services that an NGI may decide to offer its user community. It is understood, then, that the NGIs may take over an increasing number of these tasks; on the other hand, the structuring of user community services into SSCs will allow a cost savings for those NGIs that don't wish to take over these tasks entirely, and will provide continued support to the large international VOs. The SSCs are also the ideal structure to provide a link with the ESFRI infrastructures.
Contents |
| Possible participation in activity | Full / active role | Coordination role | Light coordination / tracking |
[edit] Direct User Support
| 1.1 | Collecting information regarding the take-up and use of grid technology by application area within a country. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 1.2 | Providing first line support regarding the use of the infrastructure and use of the more formal support services. Also (where applicable) coordination between local support teams and "global" support teams. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 1.3.1 | Creating FAQs/Use Cases. Writing short papers focused on particular problems identified with the infrastructure (and relevant work-arounds) or "mini-tutorials" on common tasks for techniques. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 1.3.2 | Use Case repository. Furnishing a database of use cases, essentially mini-tutorials documenting common tasks. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 1.4 | "Help desk" support for usage of grid infrastructure. This involves the routing and handling of GGUS tickets that deal with the usage of the grid infrastructure as distinct from the treatment of operational problems. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 1.5 | Identification of common problems affecting users, notification of relevant people (e.g. operations or middleware developers), and following the problem to resolution. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
[edit] VO Support
| 2.1 | VO creation counseling. Discussions with those starting new VOs to understand if a new VO is really necessary and to help them with the required minimum documents for a VO. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 2.2 | VO tools support and development. Answering questions related to the web-based registration. Development of additional tools to help VOs manage their users and facilitate communication between them. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 2.3 | VO advocacy. To discuss with VO managers (and "directors") problems that the VO is having and acting as an ombudsman to resolve those problems. This may include problems with policies, procedures, resource allocation, and the like. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 2.4 | The operation and management of a VO, including managing the membership, responding to security issues, etc. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 2.5.1 | Site testing support. Work to create standard, application-level tests to better filter "acceptable" sites for a particular VO or application. This includes a SAM test repository and interaction with FCR tool. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 2.5.2 | SAM test repository. Supplying a database of SAM tests appropriate for application level tests. This includes such things as the availability of compilers. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
[edit] Documentation and Training
- Main article: Documentation and Training
| 3.1 | Technical information gathering, indexing of documentation. This includes the documentation available through the Middleware providers as well as that provided by national grid infrastructure or institutes. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.2 | Review and maintenance of documentation; the systematic review of all documentation to provide feedback to authors for improvement. Content and material creation for central services. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.3.1 | Indexing of local documentation. Maintaining a census of documentation available within the region, especially localized documentation. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.3.2 | Localization of global documentation. Translation of key documents to regional language. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.3.3 | Review of local documentation. Review and improvement of documentation available within a region. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.4 | Creation of training materials, live or broadcast training events and provision of web based materials. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.5 | Maintenance of local repositories and online teaching environments. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.6 | Support of central services such as material repository and online resources. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.7.1 | Operations in each site part of the regional t-Infrastructure. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 3.7.2 | Coordination and interoperation of regional t-Infrastructure resources.
For EGI.org: support of t-Infrastructure interoperation and management of grid central services. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
[edit] Application Porting Support
Note that we don't include any tasks for the actual porting of applications. These are assumed to be fulfilled by the VOs themselves.
| 4.1.1 | Application porting "case studies". Development of case studies that document how particular applications were ported to the e-Infrastructure. These typically include an application overview, selected grid services, and external services. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 4.1.2 | Development of porting plans. The creation of porting plans based on the needs of a particular application and constraints of the production infrastructure. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 4.2 | "Help Desk" for application developers. Providing application porting expertise for application developers on the grid. This is remote help (email, phone) for short well-identified issues. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 4.3 | Identification of common issues or techniques and interaction with training and user support teams to ensure this information is available to the full user community. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
[edit] Specialised Services
These services include the coordination of the development of Science Gateways. The actual development of these gateways is not included in these tasks, and is assumed to be fulfilled by the VOs themselves.
| 5.1.1 | Specific scientific discipline support. Examples are the porting of common software for the discipline, developing techniques for access to common data stores, etc. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 5.1.2 | Development of shared "services". Examples of past generic packages are GANGA/Diane, AMGA, and Hydra. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 5.1.3 | Coordination of the development of Science Gateways, to expose common tools and services (e.g. workflow engines, web services, semantic annotation) in a transparent and easy-to-find manner.
For EGI.org: providing links from the EGI web page to the science gateways. Collecting and offering best practices and guidelines for the development of science gateways. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 5.2 | Application-level testing. These include tests for functionality, scalability, and performance. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 5.3 | Scientific discipline meetings. The planning and running of meetings focused on the use of grid technology within a particular scientific discipline. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
[edit] UCS Management
These services include the coordination of the development of Science Gateways. The actual development of these gateways is not included in these tasks, and is assumed to be fulfilled by the communities themselves.
| 6.1 | Coordination of the interactions between users (usually application developers) and middleware developers. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 6.2 | Coordination of the interaction between users and operations. Typically related to the provisioning of core VO services or computing resources. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 6.3 | Application database. Supplying an application database that allows applications to be "registered", permitting people to search for similar applications and contact the authors for guidance. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 6.4 | External and UMD Candidate Software Review. Selection of software packages that can help application developers use the grid infrastructure, but are not part of the core Middleware distribution(s). Similar to / an extension of the EGEE RESPECT program. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 6.5 | Contributing to the description and evaluation of operational issues that can be of interest for scientific research. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 6.6.1 | Topical meetings. The planning and running of meetings focused on particular technologies or techniques required by several disciplines. Examples are MPI access, low-latency scheduling, etc. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 6.6.2 | User Fora. The planning and running of meetings focused on the scientific and industrial exploitation of grid technology. These should be pluridisciplinary meetings used to bring people from different communities together. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
| 6.7 | Facilitating and supporting the effort towards publication of grid behavioral data, and fostering collaborations with relevant EU projects and national scientific networks. | NGI | SSC | EGI.org |
