EPOS Competence Center - a pilot on using a common e-Infrastructure for accessing and processing Earth Science Data

Overview:

The mission of EPOS is to monitor and understand the dynamic and complex Earth system by relying on new e-science opportunities and integrating diverse and advanced Research Infrastructures in Europe for solid Earth Science. 
Through integration of data, models and facilities EPOS will allow the Earth Science community to make a step change in developing new concepts and tools for key answers to scientific and socio-economic questions concerning geo-hazards and geo-resources as well as Earth sciences applications to the environment and to human welfare.
One of the main challenges of EPOS is the integration of multidisciplinary data from domain specific communities, organised as Thematic Core Services (TCS) – European Wide organizations and e-Infrastructure providing community specific data and data products -   into a single e-infrastructure, namely Integrated Core Services (ICS) system. 
The main purpose of ICS is to achieve data, service and software integration from the TCS. ICS will therefore ensure TCS interoperability and build a new system for easy,  homogeneous and transparent access to heterogeneous data, services and software provided by TCS.
As a consequence, standard tools and techniques to achieve such integration are needed. 
In this framework, EPOS joined the EGI Engage call for a Competence Center with the goal of developing test cases taking advantage of the software, coordination activities and e-infrastructure provided or managed by EGI. 
Two use cases have been developed up to now and will be discussed in the presentation:
A basic multidisciplinary use case, dealing with the discovery of heterogeneous data from the ICS-C portal by a user who wants to discover and access (e.g. download) such data. This use case represents the minimal objective in the framework of the present EPOS CC, and entails the usage AAI delegation mechanisms
An extended, single discipline, computational oriented use case, dealing with the usage, from user’s side, of a computational seismology tool which orchestrates the access to data and to computational resources on behalf of the user. This test case will be also extended to satellite data.

The presentation of the above use cases will contribute to the current discussions on two vital topics, i.e. a) e-Research Infrastructure interoperability and b) e-Infrastructure resources procurement to achieve interoperability, by showing and discussing the ongoing research and implementation work of EPOS CC, and by reporting about the technical implementation, tools and choices for AAAI integrated system and for easy access to computational resources provided coordinated by EGI.

Target Audience:

Several stakeholders compose the target audience: 

• e-Research Infrastructure managers and practitioners facing the challenge of data, software and service integration at European level
• e-Infrastructure providers interested in the requirements and needs of Earth Sciences Research
• People interested in AAI integrated solutions 
• People interested in interoperate grid and cloud resources into existing Research Infrastructures
• all people involved within EPOS, 
• all people involved within EGI-ENGAGE

Benefits for Audience:

Audience will learn about current challenges about AAI and interoperate grid and cloud resources into existing Research Infrastructures, including best practices and demonstration of implementation of software platforms related to the above use cases.

Topic 1: Challenges facing users and service providers