1 The VO registration process
Any person, who holds a grid certificate recognised by EGI [R9]. can register a new EGI VO via the Operations Portal. The person who initiates the registration is called the VO manager. After the VO is setup and operational, the VO manager is the person who is primarily responsible for the operation of the VO and for providing sufficient information about VO activities for EGI and for VO members (to both people and sites).
The registration process inside EGI is handled by and coordinated by the VO supervisor. This person is delegated from the User Community Support Team of EGI.eu (UCST).
The following table describes the VO registration process, listing each of the steps that need to be performed, the people who are responsible for the action, and the physical action that need to be executed to complete the step.
# |
Step |
Performed by |
Tool to use |
Physical action |
Prerequisites |
|
External to EGI |
Internal to EGI |
|||||
1 |
Submit VO registration request |
VO manager |
|
Operations portal |
Fill out Web form |
Grid certificate must be in Web browser |
2a |
Inform EGI about new VO registration request |
|
Operations portal |
|
Send notification email to
|
|
2b |
Inform EGI that a new VO requires VOMS server |
|
Operations portal |
|
Open GGUS ticket requesting a VOMS server to the new VO, and asking to be assigned to the VO Services support unit. |
VO manager asked EGI for a VOMS server in Step 1. |
2c |
Inform EGI that new VO requires new Support Unit in GGUS |
|
Operations portal |
|
Open a ticket against the GGUS support unit in GGUS. |
VO manager asked assistance in Step 1 to setup a new GGUS Support Unit. |
3a |
Check the correctness of VO registration request |
|
VO supervisor |
Operations portal |
Check the content of the VO Id card [R2] |
|
3b |
Ask for update of VO Id card |
|
VO supervisor |
GGUS ticket |
Send out update request to VO manager |
Data is missing or incorrect in VO Id card[2] |
4 |
Recommend the VO for approval |
|
VO supervisor |
GGUS ticket |
If the scope of the VO is GLOBAL, then send approval recommendation to CCO and COO. They have 5 work days to raise any objection[3]. |
VO Id card contains correct and complete data |
5 |
Approve registration |
|
VO supervisor |
Operations portal |
On the VO Id card [R3]:
Save the Id card |
The scope of the VO is GLOBAL and there is no objection against approval from CCO and COO. |
6 |
Optional step: Setup VOMS server and register in GOC DB. |
VO manager |
|
VOMS specific |
|
The VO cannot use any of the existing VOMS servers. |
7 |
Defining VOMS server on VO Id card |
VO manager |
|
Operations portal |
Can be part of step 1. |
|
8a |
Inform EGI that Id card contains VOMS server |
|
Operations portal |
|
Send notification email to
|
|
8b |
Inform EGI that New VO SU was created in GGUS |
|
Operations portal |
|
Send notification email to
|
|
9 |
Approve new VO Id card |
|
VO supervisor |
Operations portal |
Set VO status from PENDING or NEW to ACTIVE, save VO Id card in [R3]. |
|
10 |
Inform EGI about new ACTIVE VO |
|
Operations portal |
|
Send notification email to
|
|
11 |
NOC/ROC managers invite sites to join the VO |
|
NOC/ROC managers |
|
Forward email to site administrators |
|
12 |
Sites join the VO |
|
EGI Operations |
Internal to EGI Operations |
|
[1] “VO supervisor” is the member of the EGI User Community Support Team who is responsible for the approval of VO registration requests. The VO supervisor can be contacted through the ucst@egi.eu email address.
[2] See the specification of correct and complete VO Id cards in Section 1.1.
[3] CCO: Chief Customer Officer; COO: Chief Operations Officer
1.1.1 Scope of the VO
As part of the VO approval step (Step 5 in the table above) the scope of the VO must be defined by the VO supervisor based on information provided by the VO manager either in the VO Id card, or through additional channels (e.g. in email). The scope must be one of the following:
- ·GLOBAL: the VO is supported by sites from multiple countries and all of these countries are represented by its National Grid Infrastructure (NGI); comprises an international user community and/or has international resources coming from sites of different countries represented by their National Grid Infrastructures (NGIs).
- ·NATIONAL: at least the supporting sites of the VO belong to only one NGI; i.e. sites and users aer located within the same country. Users might come from elsewhere but they are working inside the scope of the same NGI where the sites are. The associated NGI is part of the scope, like for example “NGI - Italy” or “NGI - France”.
In case of invalid, unclear or ambiguous entries in any of the controlled fields of the VO Id card, or in case of doubts about the goals of the VO, the requestor must be contacted and invited to clarify the situation or to correct the entries.
1.1.2 VO lifecycle – VO states
A VO is in one of the following states:
- ·NEW: this is the initial state when the VO creation is requested. It is automatically assigned.
- ·PRODUCTION: the “normal” state of a VO. It is manually given to a VO by the VO supervisor when the VO manager has entered a valid VOMS server on the Id card of the VO.
- ·SUSPENDED: this state is entered when the VO no longer has a VOMS server, either because (one of) the VO manager(s) deleted the corresponding entry on the VO ID card, or some other person with VO Supervisior role in the operations portal did that. This may be temporary or the preparation of VO deregistration. Manual intervention is needed to put a VO into this state.
- ·DELETED: the final state of all VOs ever registered. VOs where the registration was rejected do not get here. No trace is kept of erroneous registration requests neither. The associated VO Id card should basically be empty, the only information which really can be considered valid is the VO name (and the state itself). Keeping the VO name is meant to avoid giving the same name to different VOs and so to avoid confusion for sites which forgot or considered unnecessary to suppress a DEAD VO from their information system. It also keeps historical accounting data consistent.
Note that manual state changes can only be made by people registered in VO Supervisor role on the Operations portal or by the Operations portal team itself. This document covers the VO lifecycle from “non existing” through NEW, then VALIDATED to ACTIVE.
1.2 Rejecting a VO registration request
Before the Operations portal enforced the DNS naming rule automatically, one request was rejected because it did not respect this rule. Later on at various times VOs were registered with a valid DNS like VO name and then the VO manager asked to change it to a non DNS one, or the EGEE RAG was asked before registration whether a non DNS name would be possible. Such requests for VOs which were not deployed on the EGEE infrastructure before the DNS naming rule was enforced were rejected. No other rejections took place.
However, several VOs got stuck in the registration process because they did not correct some invalid mandatory information, especially in the VO AUP, the VO Description, or the VO Homepage despite of repeated reminders to do so.
2 Support for VO operation and monitoring
- If the scope of a VO is national (i.e. both users and sites belong to a single country) then support for the VO must be provided by the respective National Grid Initiative/Infrastructure (NGI). The User Community Support Team can connect the VO manager to the respective NGI support team (ucst@egi.eu).
- The “VO Services” team of EGI provides assistance for the setup and operation of VOs. The team is able to answer questions related to VO operation, monitoring and accounting. The team also provides documentation and catch-all services for VOs. These catch-all services cover the basic monitoring and accounting needs of most communities. The VO Services team maintains up to date information at its Wiki page [R7] and can be contacted via the EGI Helpdesk helpdesk: www.ggus.org (Name of the support unit is also “VO Services”).
- The VO supervisor can obtain an overview of VOs at the following page: http://operations-portal.egi.eu/vo This table indicates which fields of the VO Id cards are filled / missing by each of the VOs. The missing bits are highlighted in red. Green indicates properly filled segments.