D2.6 Blue Cloud Architecture - Release 1

This report D2.6 describes the Blue Cloud architecture as it is known at Month 9. It is the first release of the architecture as it is expected that the actual development and implementation of the Blue Cloud system will provide further challenges and elaborated details. For that purpose, two more releases of the architecture document are planned, namely report D2.7 in Month 15 and report D2.8 in Month 27.

The technical framework of the pilot Blue-Cloud will feature:

• the Blue Cloud Data Discovery and Access service component to serve federated discovery and access to blue data infrastructures
• the Blue Cloud Virtual Research Environment (VRE) component to provide a Blue Cloud VRE as a federation of computing platforms and analytical services.

In this report, the architecture and functionalities of each of these components are described in detail as well as the roles of partners that will develop and host modules.

The Blue Cloud Data Discovery and Access service architecture is based upon a combination of the GeoDab metadata broker service of CNR-IIA, and the SeaDataNet CDI service modules as developed by MARIS, IFREMER, and EUDAT in the framework of the EU SeaDataCloud project. For the Blue-Cloud Discovery and Access service and its modules, additional developments will be needed such as adapting and upgrading of existing services, adding new services, testing modules, integrating modules, and testing the integrated service, in order to achieve the planned functionality.

The Blue Cloud VRE will be based upon the existing D4Science e-infrastructure as developed and managed by CNR-ISTI. This e-infrastructure already hosts multiple Virtual Labs and offers a variety of services, which can be adopted for the Blue Cloud. The D4Science e-infrastructure also has proven solutions for connecting to external computing platforms and means for orchestrating distributed services, which will be instrumental for smart connections to the other e-infrastructures in the Blue-Cloud system.

The Blue Cloud demonstrators will be developed as Virtual Labs embedded in the D4Science VRE e-infrastructure and supported by data input from the Blue Cloud Data Discovery and Access service and other data resources, and possible additional computing services. The demonstrators are being worked out in a cooperation between WP3 and WP4, analysing their scientific workflows and technical set-up, and considering the present D4Science VRE infrastructure and services that will provide the basis platform. However, at this time of development, there is no insight yet whether the demonstrators will require upgrading of existing functionality or development of additional services. Therefore, the described architecture of the VRE concerns the current D4Science e-infrastructure.

In addition, consideration is given to integration aspects, such as two-way linking between the 2 Blue Cloud components, and expanding the VRE with additional platforms for computing and D2.6Blue Cloud Architecture (Release 1) algorithms, and where needed for specific demonstrators, direct access to data infrastructures. Moreover, aspects of authentication and monitoring are considered on full Blue Cloud scale.

The initial Blue Cloud architecture as described in this report, is designed to be scalable and sustainable for near-future expansions, such as connecting additional blue data infrastructures, implementing more and advanced blue analytical services, configuring more dedicated Virtual Labs, and targeting more (groups of) users.