Glossary V1

EGI Glossary (draft)

Why a Common Glossary

The EGI Community is composed by a large number of heterogenous actors who contribute to providing or consuming services for e-Science. Policy makers produce policies and procedures that govern the EGI processes; dissemination experts write articles for communicating the progress and results in using or evolving EGI; end-users write papers on research results achieved through the infrastructure; technology providers report on the advancement of technology components that enable EGI to operate and so on.

From many parties, it has been often expressed the need to identify a common set of terms which definition is agreed and shared so to improve the understanding and consistency of documents. In the current scenario, several independent glossaries exist sometimes with not consisten definitions.

The goal of the EGI Glossary is to address this problem by identifying and maintaining a shared set of terms across all the functional areas of EGI in order to enable a consistent understanding and usage within a well-defined scope. The EGI Glossary is maintained by the EGI Glossary Coordination Group who collect feedback from the whole EGI community through the EGI policy boards.   

This page contains the first version of the EGI Glossary of terms, still under discussion within the community. This draft builds on the work of the SPG Glossary, the  Resource Centre OLA Glossary, a number of TCB terms, and try to leverage external glossaries such as OGF PGI Glossary and the ITIL Glossary.

In its current version, the EGI Glossary aims at minimising the usage of the term "EGI" in the definitions following a requirement from SPG. The goal is to simplify the writing of policies and procedures that can be re-used by other e-infrastructures. 

How to Report your Feedback

Please, provide your feedback to the proposed terms and definitions in this page byJuly 31, 2011

How to Reference

• EGI Glossary - latest version: http://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Glossary
• EGI Glossary - Version 1: http://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Glossary_V1
• A term definition in the latest EGI Glossary: http://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Glossary#TERM_NAME
• A term definition in the EGI Glossary Version 1: http://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Glossary_V1#TERM_NAME

Terms and Definitions

• Where a definition of a term includes another term, those related terms are given initial capitals
• The form 'See also Term X, Term Y' is used at the end of a definition where an importan related term is not used with the text of the definition itself

EGI Glossary

Term	Abbr.	Definition
Accounting Record		An entry in an accounting database identifying the quantitative usage of Resources by Users.
Acceptable Use Policy	AUP	A set of terms and conditions applicable to the Users of an IT Infrastructure.
Appliance		The technical implementation of a Capability. An Appliance may be delivered in a single, monolithic Package, or it may be delivered as a set of components that are grouped into a set of Packages. In the latter case all packages must be installed to provide the complete Appliance.
Application Service Provider	ASP	An external service provider that provides IT Services using applications running at the Service Provider's premises. Users access the Applications by network connections to the Service Provider (Source: ITIL)
Capability		The ability of an IT Service to carry out an activity. A capability may be 1) functional if providing an Activity for the direct benefit of the User; 2) operational if providing an Activity for supporting the Operations of an IT Infrastructure; 3) security if related to security aspects. A Capability may depend on others Capabilities. A Capability is defined and delivered by one or more Interfaces supported by one or more technology providers.
Certified Resource Centre	CRC	A Resource Centre that conforms to the requirements specified in the Resource Centre Registration and Certification Procedure.
Contract		A legally binding Agreement between two or more parties (Source: ITIL) The rules and constraints description for interaction via the Interface associated with the Contract; a Contract represents the unit of service specification in the technology neutral architecture (Source: TMF)
EGI.eu		Organisation based in Amsterdam established to coordinate and manage the infrastructure (EGI) on behalf of its participants: National Grid Initiatives (NGIs) and European Intergovernmental Research Organisations (EIROs).
EGI-InSPIRE		A four-year project, co-funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme (contract number: RI-261323), helping to establish a sustainable, reliable e-Infrastructure that can support researchers’ needs for large-scale data analysis.
e-Infrastructure		An IT Infrastructure for instant access to data, remote instruments, "in silico" experimentation, as well as the setup of Virtual Research Communities and/or Virtual Organisations.
European Grid Infrastructure	EGI	Federation of resource providers set up to deliver sustainable, integrated and secure computing services to European researchers and their international partners.
European Intergovernmental Research Organisation	EIRO	European Intergovernmental scientific Research Organisation that have extensive expertise in the areas of basic research and the management of large, international infrastructures, facilities and research programmes.
Grid		IT Infrastructure that is concerned with the integration, virtualisation, and management of services and resources in a distributed, heterogeneous environment that supports collections of users and resources (Virtual Organisations) across traditional administrative, trust and organisational boundaries (real organisations). (Source: OGF GFD-I.181)
IT Capability		See Capability
IT Infrastructure		All of the hardware, software, networks, facilities, etc. that are required to develop, test, deliver, monitor, control or support IT Services. The term IT Infrastructure includes all of the information technology but not the associated people, Processes and documentation. (Source: ITIL V3)
IT Service		A Service provided to one or more Users by a Resource Centre or a Resource Infrastructure Provider. An IT Service is based on the use of Information Technology and supports the User Business Processes. An IT Service is made up from a combination of people, Processes and technology and should be defined in a Service Level Agreement. An IT Service provides one or more IT Capabilities. (Source: ITIL V3, adapted)
Memorandum of Understanding	MoU	An agreement that clarifies the relationships, responsibilities and communication channels between two or more parties that may share services, clients, and resources. The MoU is used when both parties do not want to pursue a contract that is legally binding (generally). Formal contracts can be intimidating therefore MoUs are the better option for some communities. However, it can also be used to regulate the relationship between parties.
National Grid Initiative or Infrastructure	NGI	National Grid Infrastructures are legal organisations that (a) have a mandate to represent their national Grid community in all matters falling within the scope of EGI.eu, and (b) are the only organisation having the mandate described in (a) for its country and thus provide a single contact point at the national level.
Operational Level Agreement	OLA	An Agreement between an IT Service Provider and another part of the same Organisation. An OLA supports the IT Service Provider’s delivery of IT Services to Customers. The OLA defines the goods or Services to be provided and the responsibilities of both parties.
Operations Centre		A centre offering operations services on behalf of the Resource Infrastructure Provider.
Package		A structured software unit suitable for automated installation on a computer. A Package may specify dependencies on other packages, so that either a specific version of that package, or a minimum version of that package may satisfy that dependency.
Policy		Clear, formal and mandatory statement and position of general nature adopted by the IT Infrastructure governance bodies.
Primary Package		A Product consists of a well-defined set of specific packages, each in a specific version. Different versions (whether major, minor, or revision) of the same Product may share a subset of packages of the same version, that do not change between the compared versions.
Procedure		Step by step written and approved specification of how to complete a specific task or process.
Product		A solution delivered by Technology Providers to EGI and provides the functionality for one, sometimes more Capabilities as one single, undividable unit. Consequently, a Product may comprise of one or more Appliances.
Resource		A physical or virtual entity that is consumed from an e-Infrastructure through IT Services.
Resource Centre	RC	The smallest resource administration domain in an e-Infrastructure. It can be either localised or geographically distributed. It provides a minimum set of local or remote IT Services compliant to well-defined IT Capabilities necessary to make resources accessible to Users. Access is granted by exposing common interfaces to Users.
Resource Centre Administrator		An individual who is responsible for installing, operating, maintaining and supporting one or more resources or IT Services in a Resource Centre.
Resource Centre Operations Manager		An individual who leads the Resource Centre operations, and is the official technical contact person in the connected organisation. He/she is locally supported by a team of Resource Centre administrators.
Resource Infrastructure	RI	A Resource Infrastructure is a federation of Resource Centres.
Resource infrastructure Provider	RP	The legal organisation responsible for any matter that concerns the respective Resource Infrastructure. It provides, manages and operates (directly or indirectly) all the operational services required to an agreed level of quality as required by the Resource Centres and their user community. It holds the responsibility of integrating these operational services into EGI in order to enable uniform resource access and sharing for the benefit of their Users. The Resource infrastructure Provider liaises locally with the Resource Centre Operations Managers, and represents the Resource Centres at an international level. Examples of a Resource infrastructure Provider are the European Intergovernmental Research Organisations(EIRO) and the National Grid Initiatives (NGIs)
Service		Means of delivering value to Users by facilitating outcomes they want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks (Source: ITIL V3, adapted)
Site		See Resource Centre
Secondary Package		A package that is resolved from dependency declarations within a Package, that sources either from the Technology Provider's own Repository, or from any additional repository except OS distribution repositories. (Note: EPEL is an example of such a repository that is not an OS repository.)
Service Level Agreement	SLA	An Agreement between an IT Service Provider and a Customer. The SLA describes the IT Service, documents Service Level Targets and specifies the responsibilities of the IT Service Provider and the Customer. A single SLA may cover multiple IT Services or multiple Customers.
User		A person who uses the IT Service on day-to-day basis. (Source: ITIL V3)
UMD Capability		An IT Capability defined in the UMD Roadmap.
Unified Middleware Distribution	UMD	The integrated set of software components contributed by technology providers and packaged for deployment as production-quality services in EGI.
Virtual Organisation	VO	A group of people (e.g. scientists, researchers) with common interests and requirements, who need to work collaboratively and/or share resources (e.g. data, software, expertise, CPU, storage space) regardless of geographical location. They join a VO in order to access resources to meet these needs, after agreeing to a set of rules and Policies that govern their access and security rights (to users, resources and data).
Virtual Organisation Manager		An individual responsible for the membership registry of a VO including its accuracy and integrity.
Virtual Research Community	VRC	A group of large-scale research collaborations, or a number of separate VOs grouped according to research domain or computational technique. The group shares information and experience in achieving their goals through the usage of an e-Infrastructure (e.g., best practices, applications, training material).

Concept Map