EGI-InSPIRE:Requirements gathering details

Introduction

The evolution of the European Grid Infrastructure is driven by the users. Therefore capturing and communicating feedback from users to the infrastructure as well as technology operators and providers is a key goal for NA3 and for the project as a whole. The page linked below describes the channels, processes and bodies that the User Community Coordination activity established and runs in order to collect, capture, process, and report requirements and recommendations of users. Input from users are collected by NA3 through various electronic channels and face-to-face communication mechanisms. The User Community Board (UCB), the group of representatives of user communities, then prioritises the collected input with the help of the EGI.eu User Community Support Team (UCST) and the User Services Advisory Group (USAG). The prioritised, weighed requirements prepared by these groups provide direction for the evolution of middleware services as well as the user-oriented technical services provided by EGI. This page provides an overview of the requirement gathering and processing workflows and provides links to technical pages, where details about the Requirement Tracking (RT) tool, used to implement these processes, are described.

The page still includes links to documents that keep captured requirements and recommendations. The transfer of requirements from documents into the RT tool is ongoing. The links will be removed/updated when the transfer is done.

The requirement gathering and processing workflow - What happens with requirements?

1. Feedback, requirements and recommendations are collected by the User Community Support Team of EGI.eu from user communities. Several channels are available to communicate your requirements.
2. The collected information is normalised by the UCST (i.e. the completeness and correctness of the data is checked; format is changed; requirements are grouped).
3. The data is evaluated by the UCST and if possible the team provides solution.
4. UCST invites other members of the EGI.eu organisation and the EGI-InSPIRE project, it invites user support teams from NGIs and VRCs to provide solution if they can.
5. The remaining, unresolved requirements are discussed, prioritised and endorsed by the User Community Board to assure that the user communities' interests are correctly represented at the Technology Coordination Board.
6. The Technology Coordination Board (TCB) incorporates the endorsed requirements into the UMD (Unified Middleware Distribution) roadmap.
7. External technology providers develop new technologies, new features in EGI software.
8. EGI operators validate and install new tools on the infrastructure.

Requirement channels - How to communicate requirements to EGI?

The User Communty Support Team (UCST) of EGI already opened several channels through which users can communicate their requirements to EGI. These channels are:

1. EGI RT: This steplist describes the process of submitting a requirement to EGI through the EGI Requirement Tracking system. This is the preferred way to communicate requirements to EGI.
2. Documents written by communities: Communities are encouraged to send any document that describes their requirements to the User Community Support Team (ucst@egi.eu). The team is aware of the Requirements_gathering_details#Requirement_documents following documents and already captured requirements from (most of) these files. The requirements are available in the Requirement Tracker systemRequirements_Tracking.
3. Form to describe requirements: This form can be filled and sent back to UCST (community-support@egi.eu) to communicate user requirements with EGI. The form is designed to describe one well defined requirement. Should you have more than one requirements please submit several copies of the form.
4. UCST uses questionnaires and surveys to collects feedback from NGIs, VRCs, HUCs and VOs on well defined topics. These surveys and the received responses are available here.
5. Events: Representatives of the EGI.eu UCST attend user-centric events that are organised by grid and scientific communities (DECIDE workshop, NEERI 2010, NDGF Strategy Workshop). These events provide excellent opportunities to identify emerging user requirements and/or to further discuss needs that are already known but are not detailed enough yet to be ratified by the UCB. Please let us know about events where the UCST could capture requirements (community-support@egi.eu). Requirements captured at past events are available here.
6. Using this online form any scientific community, possibly through a use case scenario, can give evidences of the needs from the infrastructure. It is assumed that only those communities will live with this option who are not yet formally engaged with EGI (as a VRC or a VO).

Available requirements

Pre-defined queries, "RT Dashboards" are provided for VRCs, NGIs and other members of the EGI collaboration to browse and monitor progress with requirement tickets. These dashboards are listed and linked to the page where the Requerement Tracking system is described.

Status of requirements

The first set of user requirements have been reviewed by the User Community Support Team during autumn 2010 and the relevant technical requirements have been categorised according to the EGI Capabilities defined in the UMD Roadmap. The recurring Technology related requirements have been presented alongside prioritisation at the 1st User Community Board meeting in November 2010. The recurring Technology related requirements alongside prioritisations have been endorsed by the EGI User Community Board and were communicated in a formal report (accessible with EGI SSO) to external technology providers through the Technology Coordination Board on 6th December 2010.

Sources of requirements

Public documents

These documents are collections of requirements and recommendations provided for EGI by the user communities. The User Community Support Team of EGI.eu processes these documents, captures e-infrastructure requirements from them then merges with inputs from other sources before forwarding to the User Community Board.

General Documents

Title	Provider	Link to document	Processing status	Link to captured requirements
SHARE Roadmap	Healthgrid community	[1]	Processed by UCST	[2]
ESFRI project requirements for Pan-European e-infrastructure resources and facilities	European E-Infrastructure Forum	[3]	Processed by UCST	[4]
Production Grid Infrastructure - Use Case Collection v1	Open Grid Forum	[5]	Processed by UCST	[6]
Request for Enhancements of gLite to support bio-NMR applications; Updated Request for Enhancements of gLite to support bio-NMR applications	Deploying and unifying the NMR e-Infrastructure in System Biology (e-NMR)	[7], [8]	Processed by UCST	[9]
gLite requirements collected by the EGEE Project Technical Forum	EGEE project	[10]	Out of date
User requirements	European Grid Initiative Design Study	[11]	New
Deliverable D2.2: Results of questionnaires HMR	DRIHMS - Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Metereology Study	[12]	Processed by UCST	[13]
Deliverable D3.2: Results of Questionnaires GRID	DRIHMS - Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Metereology Study	[14]	Processed by UCST	[15]

Training and Education Documents

Title	Provider	Link to document	Processing status	Link to captured requirements
Computing Education	"Distributed Computing Education, Part 5: Intellectual property Rights" Elizabeth van der Meer, Malcolm Atkinson and David Fergusson,, IEEE Distributed Systems Online, (2008),	[16]	Processed by UCST	[17]
Training and Education	"Strategies and Policies to Support and Advance Education in e-Science" Malcolm Atkinson, Elizabeth Vander Meer, David Fergusson, Clive Davenhall, and Hamza Mehammed "Curricula Development for e-Science: Meeting the Challenges" By Malcolm Atkinson, David Fergusson, and Elizabeth Vander Meer "Distributed Computing Education, Part 1: A Special Case?" David Fergusson, Elizabeth van der Meer, and Malcolm Atkinson • National e-Science Centre, Edinburgh Diego Romano University of Naples Federico II "Distributed Computing Education, Part 4: Training Infrastructure" David Fergusson, Roberto Barbera, Emidio Giorgio, Marco Fargetta, Gergely Sipos, Diego Romano, Malcolm Atkinson, and Elizabeth Vander Meer	[18] [19] [20] [21]	Processed by UCST	[22]
Strategies and Policies to Support and Advance Education in e-Science	"Distributed Computing Education, Part 7: Policy Frameworks" Elizabeth van der Meer, Malcolm Atkinson and David Fergusson,, IEEE Distributed Systems Online, (2009),	[23]	New
Policy Supporting Grid Education and Training	OGF	[24] [25]	New
Policies in Cooperation on t-Infrastructure	OGF	[26]	New
Curricula Development for e-Science	"Distributed Computing Education, Part 6: Curriculum Development" Elizabeth van der Meer, Malcolm Atkinson and David Fergusson,, IEEE Distributed Systems Online, (2009),	[27]	New
Certified Grid Engineer Curriculum	OGF	[28]	New
Professional Grid Certification	OGF	[29]	New
e-Infrastructure Education and Training	eIRG ETTF	[30]	New
Grid Education and Training	OGF under ICEAGE	[31]	New
Training	OGF	[32]	New
Training modules	OGF	[33] [34] [35]	New
t-Infrastructure	OGF	[36]	New
Engaging industry in Grid Computing	OGF under E&T	[37]	New

Surveys for user communities

Surveys and questionnaires are best suited to collect input from known users and user groups on well defined topics. The User Community Support Team of EGI.eu performed the following surveys in order to receive feedback from user communities on particular topics:

Name of the survey	Topic of the survey	Format of the survey	Sent to	Sent (date)	Deadline to answer	Number of responses	Response rate	Link to survey and to collected responses	Processing status	Link to captured requirements
NGI User Support Questionnaire	Discovering the services of NGI User Support Teams; Their capabilities for serving international collaborations; Collecting feedback from NGIs on existing user services and for their improvements	Email with attached doc	Main contacts of every NGI User Support Team	25.09-05.10/2010	Continuous collection of responses	12 (out of XX)		Received answers in multiple files, Answers in a single spreadsheet	Processed by UCST	NGI USTs
VO questionnaire on EMI middleware transition and features	How does the transition of gLite services from v3.1 to v3.2 affect user communities; What enhancements user communities require in the ARC, gLite and UNICORE middleware by April 2011 (foreseen release date of EMI middleware 1.0)	Email	Administrators of every registered EGI VO; Coordinators of Heavy User Communities	07/10/2010	18/10/2010	23 (out of 223)	10.3%	VOs XLS file in EGI.eu Humyo and HUCs XLS file in EGI.eu Humyo	Processed by UCST	VOs and HUCs

List of questions that need to be answered by the user communities and will be circulated to them in the near future: Questions for user communities.

(User) Events

Event	Session (if relevant)	Provider of requirements	Processing status	Link to captured requirements
EGI Technical Forum	ESFRI sessions	ESFRI projects	Processed by UCST	EGI TF 2010 Summary / Link to the doc
EGI Technical Forum	HUCs sessions	HUCs	Processed by UCST	EGI TF 2010 Summary / Link to the doc

Other methods

Requirements collected from GGUS tickets, Savannah tickets, emails or other sources.

Requirements by BIOMED VO:

1) use of GlueSEStatus BDII attribute: Link to doc

2) dCache's grid-mapfile is cleared when VOMS is not online: Link to doc

3) establishing a strong site decommissioning procedure: Link to doc

Requirements for GGUS by UCST, Life Sciences, HUC:

1) extra button at GGUS to delegate a ticket as a requirement to EGI UCST Link to doc

Requirements by HealthGrid:

1) VO management tools Link to doc

Requirements for EGI-InSPIRE:

1) Link to doc

Our partners in capturing requirements

EEF - European E-infrastructure Forum

EEF homepage - http://www.einfrastructure-forum.eu/

EEF Work documents - https://documents.egi.eu/public/ListBy?topicid=1

2010, ESFRI Projects requirements report by EEF - https://documents.egi.eu/public/ShowDocument?docid=12

2008, ESFRI Projects requirements report by EEF - http://www.einfrastructure-forum.eu/documents/EEF-report

Members:

• EGI - http://www.egi.eu/
• DEISA - http://www.deisa.eu/
• PRACE - http://www.prace-project.eu/
• Terena - http://www.terena.org/
• GEANT - http://www.geant.net

ESFRI Projects

Requirements of Communities observed at EGI TF 2010 Summary

Reasearch Infrastructures (RIs) - http://ec.europa.eu/research/infrastructures/index_en.cfm?pg=projects

List of ESFRI Infrastructures