Service Types

Description of Service types.

Introduction

In the EGI Configuration Database, a service type is a technology used to provide a service. Each service endpoint is associated with a service type. Service types are pieces of software while service endpoints are a particular instance of that software running in a certain context.

Service Type Naming Scheme

  • Service types include grid and cloud middleware, and operational services.
  • This attribute corresponds to the Glue2 Service.Type attribute and is defined as the “Type of service according to a namespace based classification (the namespace MAY be related to a middleware name, an organisation or other concepts)”.
  • The naming scheme for new service types therefore follow a reverse DNS style syntax, usually naming the technology provider/project followed by technology type in lowercase, i.e. ‘provider.type’ (e.g. org.openstack.swift).
  • Please note, this syntax does not necessarily indicate ownership, the main objective is to avoid name clashes between services. For example, different projects may have similar services but these may be modified/customised just enough to merit a different prefix or service type name.
  • Glue2 defines a service type list at:
  • The Glue2 and GOCDB recommendation is to use lowercase (legacy enum values do exist that use camelCase).

These service types are used at some grid sites within EGI but aren’t EGI operational tools or a part of the core middleware distributions.

Service Type List

To request a new service type, please submit a request for a new service type (see the section “Adding a new service type”).

In the following section there is the list of “middleware agnostic” service types. You can obtain the whole list of service types by browsing Poem, or by launching the following query to the GOCDBPI interface:

Operational Components (middleware agnostic)

  • Site-BDII: (Site service) This service collects and publishes site’s data for the Information System. All grid sites MUST install one Site-BDII. For cloud sites eu.egi.cloud.information.bdii MUST be installed.
  • Top-BDII: (Central service) The “top-level BDII”. These collect and publish the data from site-BDIIs. Only a few instances per region are required.
  • MyProxy: [Central service] MyProxy is part of the authentication and authorization system. Often installed by sites installing the WMS service.
  • egi.APELRepository: (Central service) The central APEL repository
  • egi.AccountingPortal: (Central service) The central accounting portal
  • egi.GGUS: (Central service) The central GGUS
  • egi.GOCDB: (Central service) The central GOCDB
  • egi.MSGBroker: (Central service) The central message broker
  • egi.Portal: (Central Service) for monitoring generic web portals who dont have a specific service type
  • (deprecated) MSG-Broker: (Central service) A broker for the backbone messaging system.
  • egi.MetricsPortal: (Central service) The central metrics portal
  • egi.OpsPortal: (Central service) The central operations portal
  • egi.GRIDVIEW: (Central service) The central gridview portal
  • egi.GSTAT: (Central service) The central GStat portal
  • egi.SAM: (Central service) The central SAM monitoring
  • ngi.SAM: (Regional Service) NGI-level SAM monitoring box
  • vo.SAM: (Regional Service) VO-level SAM monitoring box
  • site.SAM: (Regional Service) Site-level SAM monitoring box
  • ngi.OpsPortal: (Regional service) NGI-level regional operations portal instance
  • argo.poem: POEM is system for managing profiles of probes and metrics in ARGO system.
  • argo.mon: ARGO Monitoring Engine gathers monitoring metrics and publishes to messaging service.
  • argo.consumer: ARGO Consumer collects monitoring metrics from monitoring engines.
  • argo.computeengine: ARGO Compute Engine computes availability and reliability of services.
  • argo.api: ARGO API service for retrieving status and A/R results.
  • argo.webui: ARGO web user interface for metric A/R visualization and recalculation management.
  • egi.aai.saml: EGI Check-in SAML interface. Enables federated access to EGI services and resources using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). Provided by GRNET.
  • egi.aai.oidc: EGI Check-in OpenID Connect interface. Enables federated access to EGI services and resources using OpenID Connect (OIDC). Provided by GRNET.
  • egi.aai.tts: EGI Check-in token translation service. Enables the translation between different authentication and authorisation protocols. Provided by GRNET.

Adding new services types

Please feel free to make a request for a new service type. All new service type requests need to be assessed by EGI via lightweight review process (by EGI OMB and EGI Operations) so that only suitable types are added, and to prevent duplication.

You can submit your request via EGI Helpdesk to the “Configuration and Topology Database (GOCDB)” support unit.

Please specify the following information as part of your request:

  • name of service type (lowercase):
  • high-level description of the service functionality (255 characters max):
  • project/community/organization maintaining the software:
  • scale of deployment (number of instances and by which organizations):
  • contact point (name/email address):

Note: please provide a suggested service type name following the naming scheme described above (technology provider’s reversed domain . software name) and a brief sentence to describe the service type.

Last modified August 30, 2022 by Andrea Manzi : Adding more S3 clients examples to the docs (#493)