Gathering requirements: operations
Peter Solagna unveils the operational requirements collection campaign
The Unified Middleware Distribution (UMD) is the integrated set of software components that EGI makes available from Technology Providers within the community. UMD is not static: its functional capabilities will evolve over time in response to feedbacks from users. The requirements can be submitted both by the end users and by operations communities.
Capturing and communicating feedbacks from infrastructure providers to technology providers is a key goal for EGI Operations team, as well as end-users requirements collection is a target of the User Community Support activity. Our main interlocutors in this activity are the National Grid Initiative representatives: they aggregate the requirements collected within their Resource Infrastructure, and submit them through the Request Tickets (RT) system.
Operational requirements are collected over a period of three months, although single requests can be submitted anytime. Middleware requirements are evaluated and prioritised by the Operations Management Board (OMB), before being forwarded to the technology providers.
Requests concerning Operational Tools developed inside EGI are currently collected and they will be analysed and prioritised by the Operations Tools Advisory Group (OTAG).
The current survey focuses on service monitoring and Nagios probes. NGIs can request new probes to be developed, changes to the existing ones, or propose the adaption of new ones locally developed.
Please provide your feedback. Surveys and requirement gathering are crucial if we want the grid middleware development to be a real user-driven process.
