User and Resource Environments is one of the key concepts of EOSC.
The User and Resource Environments program will address many of the challenges of this ever-evolving ecosystem, with a focus on Virtual Research Environments (VREs) that act as an open scientific gateway and connect EOSC users and communities. The EuroScienceGateway and AquaINFRA projects and the EOSC-A Task Force Technical Interoperability will first provide an overview of the developments related to VREs, with insights on the use, deployment, requirements and usability of VREs as well as an overview of all underlying services required to support EOSC users and services. Tools and services to facilitate data transfers, data discovery and data access as well as tools and services to orchestrate heterogeneous IT infrastructures will be covered. This will be the basis for the hands-on hackathon sessions where the current VREs features will be demonstrated and tested.
Approach
The User and Resource Environments session will discuss challenges that are frequently encountered, with VREs at the center. The EuroScienceGateway, AquaINFRA projects and the Technical Interoperability of Data and Services Task Force offer a diverse program that goes beyond current VREs use and seeks close collaboration for future developments, with sessions alternating between information in the form of presentations and demonstrations and practical problem solving in interactive workshops.
Objectives
- Overview of EOSC tools and services facilitating data transfers, data discovery and data access as well as tools and services to orchestrate heterogeneous IT infrastructures.
- Present the previously collected overview of supported and used VREs in EOSC.
- Align previous, current, and future VRE activities.
Outcomes
Establishment of hands-on SIGs (special interest groups) to fix common VRE-related problems and EOSC pain points regarding VREs together.
- Tuesday afternoon
A Birds-Eye-View on VREs and
related broader challenges - Wednesday morning
A VRE-Centric Workshop - Wednesday afternoon
A VRE-Centric Workshop (Part II) - Thursday morning
Wrap-up
The first introductory session on User and Resource Environments will first provide an overview of the challenges associated with User and Resource Environments and an introduction to the importance of VREs.
This will be followed by an overview of the current VREs in the EOSC environment and their applications, providing a transparent outline of what is being deployed and used by end users in EOSC, as well as presenting the key challenges and development strategies that are driving VRE developments. The input and insights from the Task Force accompanying this session will further facilitate and optimize the interactive discussions.
Objectives
- Creating a shared understanding of the current possibilities within different VREs developed by different HE EOSC-related projects, what they deploy and what is being used by end users.
- Creating insights in the challenges that the VREs face, already developed solutions of VREs and what is not yet possible and needs to be addressed by future developments.
Outcomes
Enhanced understanding and overview of the current status on VRE development in EOSC.
A Birds-Eye-View on VREs and related broader challenges
Time: 14:00 – 18:00
Session chair: TBC
Session rapporteur: TBC
| Timeslot | Activity | Format | Moderator / Facilitator | Content |
| 14:00-14:30 | WelcomeIntroduction Opportunity Matrix | Presentation | EOSC Focus Team | |
| 14:30-15:10 | Presentation of Technical Interoperability TF activities | Presentation | Diego Scardacci | Interroperability TF deliverables and future activities. |
| 15:10-16:00 | Presentation of SRIA Implementation Challenges – gaps and priorities for user and resource provider environments | Presentation | EOSC Focus Diego Scardacci Kaori Otsu | A presentation of the SRIA Key Challenges, focusing on presenting activities, developments and challenges captured in the Opportunity Area Matrix. |
| 16:00-17:00 | Presentation of participating projectsUser environments: RAISEResource environments: ESG, FAIR-EASE | Presentation | RAISE Project, EuroScienceGateway and FAIR-EASE Projects’ presentation | Presenting current development challenges of the projects and the way they’re activity is contributing in addressing the SRIA key challenges. |
| 17:00 – 17:30 | [Break] | |||
| 17:30-18:30 | Interactive discussions on User Environment Specific Challenges and VREs | Presentation/collective work session | Björn Grünning | An interactive presentation organised as a landscape analysis of the current VRE Developments and exploratory discussions to identify key challenges raised by users during the development. |
| 18:30-19:00 | Wrap up: Outcomes & Recommendations | Collective work session | Kaori Otsu Björn Grünning | Collecting summary and recommendations from the participants for SRIA2.0. |
The User and Resource Environments program on Wednesday morning will take a hand-on approach with a VRE-centric workshop approach that focuses on demonstrating the capabilities of the current VREs.
It also explores the existing and future tools and services required for supporting data discovery and data access for users, data transfer, technical interoperability between services and orchestration of heterogeneous IT infrastructures. Participants are invited to present their VREs and current-day challenges through different use cases.
Objectives
Explore the capabilities of the current VREs and test their adaptability.
Outcomes
- Identify existing vertical services supporting user activities and facilitate Data and Services Interoperability (Data Transfers, Data Discovery etc.).
- Create a list of key vertical services that could become a priority to further support and streamline the development of the VREs.
A VRE-Centric Workshop
Time: 09:30 – 12:30
Session Chair: TBC
Session rapporteur: TBC
| Timeslot | Activity | Format | Moderator / Facilitator | Content |
| 09:30-10:20 | VRE Experience @ EGI experience: EGI horizontal services as building blocks for VREs (Compute, Compute Orchestration, Storage and Data Security and Identity) | Presentation + Demo | Diego Scardacci (EGI) Catalin Condurache (EGI) Kaori Otsu | A presentation of the EGI VRE concept, a technology stack introduction:EGI notebooks as an example VREVREs from communities deployed on top of EGI: ENES, VIP, WeNMR, EISCAT, PITHIA |
| 10:20-11:00 | EuroScienceGateway – VRE, the community-driven web-based analysis platform for life science research | Presentation | Björn Grünning Kaori Otsu | Intro to EuroScienceGateway VRE concept. Galaxy technical presentation and key challenges will be presented and further discussed in this session. (the Galaxy VRE will be also part of an optional hands-on session) |
| 11:00 – 11:15 | [Break] | |||
| 11:15-12:30 | Preparing the Hands ON session – EGI (Catalin Condurache) – FAIR-EASE components and technical solutions (e.g. iRods, Galaxy Pulsar, ARCO, S3) | Presentation | Catalin Condurache (EGI) | Demo 1: Recorded video showing how a user creates a Check-in account (EGI AAI) and deploy its own VRE with Infrastructure Manager using the DaskHub TOSCA template for Pangeo.Demo 2: EOSC Data Transfer and the EGI Notebooks |
The session on PID Policy Compliance takes a look at the EOSC PID Policy and its criteria, measures and tests.
On Wednesday afternoon, the VRE-centric workshop will continue with a focus on mutual learning and reuse of existing solutions. The session will include a demonstration of Galaxy, provided by EuroScienceGateway. It will also discover the possibilities of scalability and improvement of existing solutions through a dedicated troubleshooting approach. The session will also gather future solutions required by VREs to meet the needs of their end users.
Objective
- Understanding the functionalities and inner-workings of the main VREs in EOSC
- Understanding the options for extension of existing VREs and the steps to achieve this
- Understanding the limitations of current VREs, the needed solutions to tackle those challenges and the need for new VREs to fill in the gaps
Outcome
- An overview of the existing solutions and practical manuals on how VREs can deploy and re-use those solutions to tackle their own challenges.
- A To-Do list on needed applications, solutions and requirements for VREs.
A VRE-Centric Workshop (Part II)
Time: 15:00 – 19:00
Session Chair: TBC
Session rapporteur: TBC
| Timeslot | Activity | Format | Moderator / Facilitator | Content |
| 15:00-17:00 | Preparing the Hands ON session | Interactive session | Björn Grünning Kaori Otsu Catalin Condurache | Hands on sessions of the current VREs developed by HE Projects.Test/evaluate/demonstrate current capabilities and identify major challenges that can be included in SRIA2.0 |
| 17:00-7:30 | Break | |||
| 17:30 – 18:30 | Hands ON session | Interactive session | Björn Grünning Kaori Otsu Catalin Condurache | Hands on sessions of the current VREs developed by HE Projects.Test/evaluate/demonstrate current capabilities and identify major challenges that can be included in SRIA2.0 |
| 18:30-19:00 | Wrap up: Outcomes & Recommendations | Open Discussion | Kaori Otsu |
Conclude your Winter School experience by reviewing all lessons learned in previous sessions and aligning with medium- and long-term objectives.
We will discuss important input for 2024-2026, contributions to the SRIA 2.0, and look beyond to 2027 to enhance the potential of the Horizon Europe EOSC-related projects.
20 min. presentation on PID sessions
Bios of the User & Resource Environments sub-committee
Projects
BJÖRN GRÜNING
EuroScienceGateway
Dr. rer. nat Björn Grüning currently works at the Inst. of Computer Science, University of Freiburg and is leading the Freiburg Galaxy team. Björn is part of the EuroScienceGateway project.
KAORI OTSU
AquaINFRA/EOSC Focus
Kaori Otsu has a PhD in Terrestrial Ecology by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, MSc in Geospatial Technologies by the Jaume I University, MSc and BSc in Forestry by the University of British Columbia. Currently she works as a postdoctoral researcher at CREAF in the research group Methods and Applications in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GRUMETS). Her research areas focus on technical interoperability of data and services in environmental research infrastructures, and technical development and coordination of the EOSC Partnership activities through INFRA-EOSC projects: Cos4Cloud, ESOC Focus and AquaINFRA. She is a representative of Early Career Scientists in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) Earth and Space Science Informatics Division.
FOTIS KARAYANNIS
Str-ESFRI3
Fotis Karayannis has been working in the area of e-Infrastructures for 22 years, and has contributed to the definition of the EOSC. He has worked for the majority of major e-Infrastructures initiatives and projects under multiple institutions across the EU.
EOSC-A Task Forces
DIEGO SCARDACI
TF Technical Interoperability of Data and Services
With his team, Diego works with technology providers and research & innovation projects for technology scouting, innovation of existing EGI services and the piloting of new services and solutions following user and service provider requirements. He is responsible for the definition and implementation of the EGI Technical Annual Plan. He has been involved in EOSC activities since its conception. He co-chaired the EOSC-hub activity management board. He is currently co-leading the Technical Interoperability of Data and Services EOSC Association Task Force and the EOSC Future technical pillar, co-chairing the project technical coordination board. He will be the coordinator of the EOSC Beyond project, expected to start in April 2024, that has been funded by EC to develop the next generation of EOSC Core services. He is also involved in the consortium selected for the Lot 1 of EOSC Procurement, in charge of delivering the EOSC Core Platform part of the EOSC EU Node. Before joining EGI, Diego worked with INFN and in the R&D center of the Telecom Italia group. Diego holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Catania.
EOSC-A Board of Directors
BOB JONES
Bob Jones is deputy head of the IT department at CERN and a member of the board of directors of the EOSC Association.
He was the coordinator for the award-winning Helix Nebula Science Cloud Pre-Commercial Procurement project procuring innovative cloud services for the European research community and contributing to the EOSC.
Bob was the rapporteur for EOSC Sustainability Working Group and previously the head of CERN openlab.His experience in the distributed computing arena includes mandates as the project director of the EGEE projects (2004-2010) which led to the creation of EGI.
Coordination & Support
TEODOR IVÃNOAICA
EOSC Focus
Teodor Ivănoaica has more than 15 years of working experience in Large International Collaborations. As a Senior Officer for Scientific Computing and Data Management of ELI ERIC or representing Romania in the CERN LHCb National Computing Board, Teodor has actively participated in the development of Scientific Computing and IT Service Management Systems and Policies.
With a BSc and MSc in Physics and applied IT Techniques in Scientific Research, acting as Trainer in the IT Industry for more than 15 years, or Sr Systems Engineer or Grid/HPC computing engineer, for several large IT companies and research organizations, he developed a broad understanding of Scientific Data Practices, intellectual property and cybersecurity. All these experiences allow him to promote and support users and stakeholders to adopt and implement sustainable and reliable data services and computing infrastructures for various users and user communities.
His philosophy is that each data set provides diverse, complex information, therefore, from a complex dataset, one can see only the information he’s trained to see. Exposing the same dataset to a different user or user community will unlock new dimensions of the same dataset.
KAORI OTSU
AquaINFRA/EOSC Focus
Kaori Otsu has a PhD in Terrestrial Ecology by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, MSc in Geospatial Technologies by the Jaume I University, MSc and BSc in Forestry by the University of British Columbia. Currently she works as a postdoctoral researcher at CREAF in the research group Methods and Applications in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GRUMETS). Her research areas focus on technical interoperability of data and services in environmental research infrastructures, and technical development and coordination of the EOSC Partnership activities through INFRA-EOSC projects: Cos4Cloud, ESOC Focus and AquaINFRA. She is a representative of Early Career Scientists in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) Earth and Space Science Informatics Division.