PDT:Policy Glossary

This page provides a common reference for the meaning of various terms used in the context of the all EGI.eu Policy Groups, their policy documents and EGI collaboration with external partners. As well as defining terms, this glossary also limits the scope of meaning of terms used in the EGI policy documents.

Acceptable Use Policy - AUP

A policy describing the terms and conditions applicable to use of the Grid.

European Grid Infrastructure - EGI

Federation of independent national and domain specific resource providers, who support specific research communities and international collaborators both within Europe and worldwide.

EGI.eu

EGI.eu is a foundation established under Dutch law to create and maintain a pan-European Grid Infrastructure in collaboration with National Grid Initiatives (NGIs) and European International Research Organisations (EIROs), to guarantee the long-term availability of a generic e-infrastructure for all European research communities and their international collaborators.

EGI-InSPIRE

The EGI-InSPIRE project (Integrated Sustainable Pan-European Infrastructure for Researchers in Europe) started on 1 May 2010, co-funded by the European Commission (contract number: RI-261323) for four years, as a collaborative effort involving more than 50 institutions in over 40 countries. Its mission is to establish a sustainable European Grid Infrastructure (EGI).

Grid

A hardware and software infrastructure that provides dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end computational capabilities.

Infrastructure Provider

An entity that offers resources and additional services as needed to satisfy the computing needs of Virtual Research Communities, to provide a seamless and reliable access to resources.

Memorandum of Understanding - MOU

A written agreement that clarifies the relationships, responsibilities and communication channels between two or more parties that may share services, clients, and resources.

Operations Automation Team - OAT

The OAT is facilitating cooperation between operational tool developers working in the framework of different projects, ensuring that tool development roadmaps are consistent and harmonizing development plans with the ultimate goal of preserving interoperation and ensure a consistent overall architectural model.

Operations Coordination Centre - OCC

The entity responsible for the overall management of the EGI-InSPIRE SA1 activity and will oversee the execution of the overall SA1 activity, checking the consistency between the different tasks and services, and their relationship with the agreed roadmaps.

Operations Management Board - OMB

The OMB develops the strategy and defines the technical priorities of EGI's production infrastructure. The OMB also oversees the status and progress of the global EGI and individual NGI operational services.

Operations Tools Advisory Group - OTAG

The OTAG is managing the development and evolution of operational tools in response to new scenarios and feedback from its users, collecting and prioritising new requirements and report on ongoing development, testing and release activities and providing a forum to discuss the future evolution of the operations tools and to agree tool roadmaps that meet the expressed needs of the EGI community.

Policy

Clear, formal and mandatory statement or position of general nature adopted by the EGI.eu governance bodies for issues relevant to the EGI community.

Policy Development Process - PDP

The document describing how policies and procedures relating to the pan-European Grid Infrastructure are developed by and for the EGI community.

Policy Group

An EGI body created to define policies and procedures within a specific functional area. EGI.eu has identified five functional areas: technology, user community, operations, security and organisation.

Policy Owner

A policy group responsible for drafting the policy or procedure and guiding them through the defined policy development process.

Procedure

Step by step written and approved specification of how to complete a specific task or process.

Security Coordination Group - SCG

The SCG is coordination group bringing together representatives of the various security functions within the EGI to ensure that there is coordination between the operational security, the security policy governing the use of the production infrastructure and the technology providers whose software is used within the production infrastructure.

Service Level Agreement - SLA

An agreement describing the modes of collaboration between the Technology Provider as described below, and EGI.eu as the representative of the federated European Grid Infrastructure.

Security Policy Group - SPG

The Security Policy Group (SPG) is responsible for developing the policy needed to provide NGIs with a secure, trustworthy distributed computing infrastructure. The SPG output defines the behaviour expected from NGIs, Sites, Users and other participants to maintain a beneficial and effective working environment.

Software Vulnerability Group - SVG

The Software Vulnerability Group (SVG) is group responsible for elimination of existing software vulnerabilities from the deployed infrastructure and prevents the introduction of new ones, thus reducing the likelihood of security incidents.

Stakeholder

An actor in policy development process directly affected by a policy, including the one responsible for drafting, development, implementation and/or review.

Technology Coordination Board - TCB

The Technology Coordination Board provides the forum for EGI to coordinate the requirements, assessment, delivery and verification of software technology as it moves into the production infrastructure.

Technology Roadmap

The technology roadmap defines the set of software components used on the EGI production infrastructure, which are classified as EGI Technology Components, UMD Roadmap Components or EGI Domain Specific Components.

Terms of Reference - TOR

A document describing the establishment, purpose, responsibility, composition and operational procedures of EGI.eu internal policy group.

User Community Board

The User Community Board develops the strategy and defines the priorities for the human and technical user community support services provided by EGI.

User Services Advisory Group - USAG

The User Services Advisory Group provides feedback on the software tools and services offered to the EGI user community. USAG also oversees EGI Helpdesk and compiles the community's requirements regarding documentation, training and databases.

Virtual Organisation - VO

A grouping of users and optionally resources, often not bound to a single institution, who, by reason of their common membership and in sharing a common goal, are given authority to use a set of resources.

Virtual Research Community - VRC

An organisational grouping that brings together transient Virtual Organisations within a persistent and sustainable structure. A VRC must be a self-organising group that collects and represents the interests of a focussed collection of researchers across a clear and well-defined field.

VO AUP

The policy document describing the goals of the VO thereby defining the expected and acceptable use of the Grid by the users of the VO.