NGI International Task Review MS109 Portugal

User Services

Human Services (Table 1)

Table 1: NGI Assessment: User Services >> Human Services

EGI-InSPIRE	EGI_DS	Name	Assessment	Score	How to Improve
NA3.3N	U-N-3 U-N-13	Requirements Gathering	Requirements collection is done in the Ibergrid context via user support mailing contacts. It is also done via operational channels (weekly contacts, mailing contacts) since operational staff at sites represent the infrastructure / middleware closest frontend for users.	3	Document and enhance the present "gathering requirements" procedure in the WIKI to make it more formal and visible for users. Properly broadcast the communication channels available.
NA3.3N	U-N-14 U-N-15	Application Database	The EGI AppDB was dissiminated inside the Portuguese and IBERGRID community via emails, via the weekly operations meetings and inside the user communities. The first Portuguese application was registered.	3	The added value of the tool is out of discussion. However, the impact on the user community is not directly observed. Appdb should show a ranking of the most popular applications, and on a weekly basis, highlight some applications from the main web page. We will continue to dissiminate the AppDB inside our national community either through emails or via presentations.
NA3.3N	U-N-16 U-N-17	Training	A major training event is held by the Portuguese and Spanish teams during the Ibergrid conference on an yearly basis. Other training sessions are performed on request. Worthless CAs are supported in Portugal to allow tutorials in the production infrastructure. Tutorials / training on administration is done on person or using messaging communication systems.	4	Improve the training materials which were inherited from previous activities and projects.
NA3.3N	U-N-12 U-N-18 U-N-19	Consultancy	Portuguese NGI staff provides consultancy in the Iberic region. Consultancy may be requested via helpdesk, mail or messaging system. A first reply normally comes in less than a couple of hours, during working days. More dedicated consultancy sessions are agended on request.	4	The adopted model ensures that the load is properly shared by all involved staff, and involves redundancy.

Operations Services

Human Services (Table 2)

Table 2: NGI Assessment: Operations Services >> Human Services

EGI-InSPIRE	EGI_DS	Name	Assessment	Score	How to Improve
SA1.4N	O-N-9	Requirements Gathering	Operational requirements collection is done in the Ibergrid context via weekly operations meetings and operation mailing contacts. Requirements to EMI 1.0 and 2.0 were already collected using these mechanisms and inserted in the EGI RT system.	3	Document the present "gathering requirements" procedure in the WIKI to make it more formal, and properly broadcast the communication channels available.
SA1.1N	O-N-9	Operations Coordination	A representative for operations in the Iberic region is present in the OMB meetings and follows all the proposed requests. All request are forwards to the regional operation contacts and discussed on weekly meetings. Dependending on the urgency GGUS tickets are opened to sites. That is normally a guarantee that sites will react to the request even if it missed emails or assistance of regional operational meetings.	4	The amount of actions and documentation that is request to NGI managers to read and provide feedback is to high given the deadlines that are imposed. This results in overloading the regional operation staff with requests. NGI managers have to prioritize according to their own criteria, and most of the times reply rather late. Given the ammount of work, probably the effort in not adequate.
SA1.2N	O-N-9	Security	A portuguese representative assists the weekly and monthly EGI security meetings and participates on EGI CSIRT activities like shifts as EGI security officer. On a daily basis, the Portuguese NGI security officer monitors the infrastructure searching for security vulnerabilities and coordinates response to incidents in Portugal, if they exist. It also ensures that the EGI security directives are followed in due time by all Portuguese sites. The Portuguese NGI security officer has previleged communication channels with the Spanish teams under the IBERGRID context.	4	The effort on this task has a tendency to be underestimated since the infrastructure tends to increase, the technology used in the incidents tends to be more complicated and the investigation, handling and coordination tends to me more time consuming.

Infrastructure Services (Table 3)

Table 3: NGI Assessment: Operations Services >> Infrastructure Services

EGI-InSPIRE	EGI_DS	Name	Assessment	Score	How to Improve
SA1.3N	O-N-9	Software Rollout	The portuguese NGI contributes to SR rollout activities and has deployed several gLite componenents before they reach productions. Some examples are several versions top-BDII, site-BDII, CreamCE, SGE_utils and VOMS server.	4
SA1.4N	O-N-3	Monitoring	The SAM service is shared between Portugal and Spain. SAM serving ops VO is deployed in SPAIN while SAM monitoring application VOs is deployed in Portugal. The effort on maintaining such a service is not small specially in the beguinning of the service operation. Although the service is now in a mature state, sites supporting WLCG still tend to continuously compare with the WLCG SAM monitoring, and sometimes results are not syncronized, giving origin to requests and complains. The operationa dashboard was installed in the Portuguese NGI and serves the IBERGRID operation staff. We are one of the few NGI with decided to test and use its own operation dashboard.	4	The general feeling is that the SAM staff is always with such a big load that they take some time to react to SAM regional problems which are normally quite urgent and with direct impact on the infrastructure A/R metrics. Therefore, we tend to suspect that more effort should be put on the support and deployment of SAM instances. SAM is the most important service for NGIs. Failover guidelines for the service itself as well for the services it interoperates with should be provided. Regarding the regional dashboard, its operation is not time consuming except during updates/upgrades. The regional dashboard releases seem to lack enough testing while the documentation does not embraces all the necessary actions and changes. Nevertheless, the developmet team is always very helpfull in solving problems. Some sync problems have also be observed between regional and central dashboard.
SA1.5N	O-N-2	Accounting	write here	0-5	write here
SA1.4N	O-N-1 O-N-4	Configuration Repository and Operations Portal	write here	0-5	write here
SA1.6N SA1.7N	O-N-6 O-N-7	Helpdesk	write here	0-5	write here
SA1.8N	O-N-5 O-N-8	Core Services	write here	0-5	write here

Other (Table 4)

Table 4: NGI Assessment: Other

EGI-InSPIRE	EGI_DS	Name	Assessment	Score	How to Improve
NA2.3N		Policy Development	write here	0-5	write here
NA2.2N	E-N-2	Dissemination	write here	0-5	write here