The EUDAT Collaborative Data Infrastructure is a defined data model and a set of technical standards and policies adopted by European research data centres and community data repositories to create a single European e-infrastructure of interoperable data services.

 

The EUDAT Collaborative Data Infrastructure (or CDI) consists of a network of nodes that provide a range of services for for upload and retrieval, identification and description, movement, replication and data integrity, plus some additional services that are needed to operate the infrastructure. The nodes are essentially data centres (or computer centres) that have a data repository and that provide software services to manage the stored data – for example, storing data, searching for data, or adding metadata to the data. In an EUDAT context, these centres are known as service providers. A data centre that (primarily) serves a specific research discipline (like DKRZ, the German Climate Computing Centre, which supports climate research) is known as a thematic service provider, while a centre that provides services for different research communities (such as the CSC-IT Center for Science in Finland, which supports research in a wide range of areas) is known as a generic service provider. <Many of the largest scientific data centres within Europe are service providers within the context of EUDAT.

 

How can you get involved in the CDI?

There are differences between the ways in which individuals or groups of researchers can interact with the EUDAT CDI compared to the way computing and data centres participate in the CDI. Generally, researchers use the EUDAT CDI, while computing and data centres join it as CDI generic or thematic service providers. To be part of the EUDAT CDI, generic and thematic service providers have to sign a specific collaboration agreement (If you want to become an EUDAT Service provider please contact us).

 

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