This updated version of the EUDAT Sustainability Plan reviews the issues of the emerging Collaborative Data Infrastructure’s structure, organisation, funding and the stability of its underlying software and services at the end of the project’s second year, and charts a series of action points for the year ahead.
The introductory chapter presents a conceptual model and architecture for the Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI) as a network of nodes governed by pairwise interactions at both technical and legal (or pseudo-legal) levels. This model frames the remaining chapters. Chapter 2 reviews possible legal models for the network as a whole, drawing from similar recent work from the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI.eu). We conclude that there is, as yet, no compelling case for an EUDAT legal entity, but that certain options should remain open for the future. Chapter 3 takes a risk-oriented view of the software components and subsystems currently used to deliver EUDAT services across the CDI. Some components are mature, some less so, and understanding the reliability of them for the long-term is a key aspect of sustainability. Chapter 4 returns to the topic of costs and funding models first examined in Chapter 8 of the first version of this plan1 and tightens up those original ideas against the more concrete picture of the CDI that we now have. While it is still too early to establish definite cost and funding models, we chart a definite path for the final year of the project. Chapter 5 can be viewed as “requirements for the Community Integration Toolkit (CIT)” of Task 2.3 and deliverable D2.3.12. It reviews, in case-study form, the motivation, needs and benefits of joining the EUDAT CDI for three recent new project partners, and draws conclusions that have fed directly into the first version of the CIT.
We conclude in Chapter 6 with recommendations for the year ahead. In particular, we recommend that over the final 12 months of the project, EUDAT should:
1. establish a governance structure for the Collaborative Data Infrastructure;
2. develop and promote the Community Integration Toolkit, focusing on template pairwise agreements between individual sites, as suggested by the conclusions to Chapter 5;
3. keep a watching brief on the formation of a legal entity. As important decisions or topics are debated, WP2 should ask “would this have been easier if EUDAT were a legal entity?”
4. aim to keep the amount of internally-developed software to a minimum;
5. introduce strong quality processes for internally-developed software, including test, regression and release processes;
6. focus development effort on strengthening existing services rather than developing new ones.
7. complete “mini business cases” for each CDI service, including benefits described for both users and funders;
8. develop and implement an activity-based “added cost” model in an attempt to quantify the installation and support commitments made by sites joining the CDI.
Appendices cover details of software components discussed in Chapter 3, and possible funding scenarios from Chapter 4.
Download the document from B2SHARE: http://hdl.handle.net/11304/9fba4ed0-f48d-11e4-ac7e-860aa0063d1f