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We suggest to develop a pilot use case with one/two project partner and then move to implementation with a larger base. Please note that the project will end in January 2017 so at least the pilot must be implemented by then.
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Interviews
Lifewatch
Lifewatch overview
Lifewatch (LW) is an ESFRI, more information about the LW overall objectives here:
LW most active users are currently mainly concentrated in Portugal and Spain, but the community includes researchers from Belgium, Greece, Italy, Netherlands and Romania. More countries are part of the collaboration as observers, and the final goal is to support users from the whole Europe and beyond.
The use cases of LW can be summarized in two main categories:
- Researchers will access the data, and analyze and correlate the datasets. They need to access computing and storage resources to perform their research, therefore they need access to e-infrastructures.
- Citizen science users will access the dataset and upload data about observations. They are not institutional users, but also biodiversity enthusiasts who are willing to report observations of species around Europe.
The community of LW has a group of expert users, who are managing services and the resources accessible to the users. These expert users, or VO administrators, are more keen to use X.509 credentials, or – more in general – do adapt to the requirements of the e-infrastructures.
Researchers and institutional users very likely will access the e-infrastructure resources through platforms and portals provided by LW. The activities that they can perform requires a certain level of security: usage of resources, accessing non entirely open data, storing data. Therefore integration between institutional credentials (hopefully eduGAIN), the LW specific services, and the e-infrastructures AAI is required.
LW must consider researchers who do not have an institution IdP. These researchers must access anyhow the same services as the other researchers, and to support them LW is planning to deploy a catch-all IdP to be used for the affiliated researchers. LW is working to institute a legal entity who could employ staff to support central services such as the IdP.
Citizen science users are the other category of users relevant for LW. They are not related to institutions but biodiversity enthusiasts who will access very specific portals and data repositories. Citizen scientist are providing data about biodiversity observations, enriching the databases/datasets available online. To access the LW services for citizen science, users will have to be able to use a variety of low LoA credentials, such as social IDs or Google ID.
Another category of users are public authorities who collect environmental data that is relevant for the LW communities, or who are interested in the dataset available in LW, possibly also in using LW resources to run for example simulations.
Lifewatch is currently exploring the possibility to use ORCID ID as a unique identifier for the researchers.
Example of use case
(From the INDICO use cases deliverable)
One SME team wants to model the hydrodynamic behavior of the water reservoir in relation to algae bloom.
The input comes from ENV experts in the SME.
- An ICT expert launches the simulation in HPC resources in the cloud. Each simulation is run from April to October for a given year, in 1h step, 3D.
- The ICT expert checks with the ENV experts in the SME that the reference distributions (Temperature profiles, water level, etc) make sense and compare them to previous monitoring data (when existing). The SME experts accesses the programs output on cloud resources via remote interactive portal.
- If the comparison is successful, the output is stored. If a prediction is required, different tasks are executed using previous year weather scenarios to provide an estimation of the probability of an algae bloom. A statistical model is then applied to estimate the expectations (this can happen in multiple iterations).
SME team wants to predict algae bloom based on model, and validate against previous year detailed analytical measurements
- The ICT and Biology experts confirm the required input
- The ICT expert prepares the simulation to estimate how the algae will grow. All input parameters to be tuned. An initial random selection using uniform sampling for 1000 different simulation points is prepared, each one requiring around 5h. These 1000 MC points are used as a first estimation of the dependence with the different variables.
- An optimization of the parameters, using history data, is made using a multivariable gradient technique. An optimized set of is obtained.
- The model is run weekly and contrasted with real evolution. Prediction of scenarios are updated. Estimation of the impact of different pressures and corrective measures (for example, water level management, by pass of waste water treatment plants, artificial wetlands, cattle management) is done to propose the best path to the management authorities.
Penetration of the federated AAI
Experience in Spain:
At the moment in Spain many institutions are not part of eduGAIN, since they are supporting a previously established national federation PAPI not SAML2 compliant. Some of the institutes are migrating, and the goal would be to federate LW portals and services to eduGAIN.
Though there is some pull back on the eduGAIN migration, since the institutions managing the IdPs, both management and operators of the IdP, are reluctant in joining a new federation, their issue being the effort, or the lack of it, to deploy SAML2 compliant IDP, and the privacy issues that could generate sharing the credential information with the whole Europe.
User communities, not also LW, are explicitly asking for an eduGAIN integration, therefore the support for SAML2 has been taking speed in the last months.
The direction is to support exchanging information through SAML2 keeping PAPI for existing national services.
In other countries, for example Portugal, the penetration of SAML2 standard in the federation is more advanced and the link with eduGAIN should be achieved with no big effort required.