EMI (European Middleware Initiative)
Project description
The EMI (European Middleware Initiative, May 2010 – April 2013) brings together the major European middleware providers to deliver a consolidated set of services to provide the European and global research communities with unprecedented computing power. EMI components are deployed in the European Distributed Computing Infrastructures, in particular EGI and PRACE. The project aims to extend the interoperability between grids and other computing infrastructures, strengthen the reliability of services, and solidify a model of comprehensive middleware services for all user communities.
EMI aims to lower the technological barriers still preventing resource owners from federating resources, and research communities from using grids as a commodity tool in their activities. It focuses on improving usability and accessibility for scientific users and interoperability and manageability for service providers.
Among its activities, EMI also includes the continuation of those initiated by the ETICS project (see D4Science-II Collaboration: ETICS 2) on remote automated build and test. The last instance of the ETICS system, installed at CERN and INFN will be further supported (but not evolved) by the EMI team, allowing D4Science Ecosystem to continue to use the same service as in the previous period.
Collaboration
In the past five years under the context of several EU projects (DILIGENT, D4Science, EGEE, EGEE-II, and EGEE-III) a solid collaboration has been established with the ETICS project. In November 2010 this collaboration has been formalized by signing a Memorandum of Underanding between EMI and D4Science. The terms of this collaboration are reported below.
Technology
From the technology perceptive the collaboration between D4Science-II and EMI targets the exploitation of the gLite middleware. In the past five years the collaboration has been focussed on the adoption of the gLite middleware and on its integration with the gCube system. As a result, a number of gCube services are now integrated with the gLite allowing access to any gLite-based infrastructure.
In particular, the currently exploited gLite services are: gLite Computing Element (lcg-CE and gLite-CREAM), gLite Storage Element (gLite-SE_dpm) and gLite VOMS. From the gCube system perspective theses gLite components are used for remote processing of high-demanding applications, remote storage of files, and users authorization.
The current collaboration between D4Science-II and EMI allows to maintain such technology exchange and make sure the current integration between gLite and gCube is kept. This collaboration foresees an iteration between the technical teams of both projects in order to follow the technology updates of each product, give feedback on the exploitation of the technology, and if required provide new requirements.
Service
Regarding the collaboration at service level a strong link between D4Science and EMI is also planned. EMI description of work includes as a dedicated activity the maintenance of the ETICS build and test system. ETICS provides a complete set of tools to manage the build and test activities of any software project by exploiting a remote infrastructure composed by machine running different platforms. As part of its collaboration plans with other projects, EMI offers access to such build and test system.
Under the context of SA3 work package D4Science-II cooperates with EMI to use the ETICS system for building and testing the gCube system. The exploitation of ETICS involves in an initial step the modeling of the different gCube components and associated build and tests commands in ETICS. This information is then used to execute builds and/or tests either in local nodes or in the ETICS infrastructure nodes. ETICS also provides automatically generated build and test reports that are integrated in the D4Science-II report tool.
This collaboration foresees an interaction between the technical teams of both projects to make sure the ETICS service is operational when new gCube releases must be integrated, tested, and released.
Plans for the future
As part of the SA3 activities, D4Science Ecosystem will continue to provide feedback about bugs, usability and limitations in the ETICS system or documentation. This will be made also through the Open Source community that the ETICS partners are setting up to further promote the adoption of ETICS and the evolution of the System.
