Key terms

Most important information and definitions from PLGrid Infrastructure in a nutshell.

Affiliation / Afiliacja

Affiliation in PLGrid Infrastructure is defined as user’s association with a Polish scientific institution.

Only academic employees and their subordinates (students, PhD students) are authorized to access PLGrid resources. To become an authorized user you must provide information about your association with a Polish scientific institution or your cooperation with a Polish scientist. User must provide all required information which will help confirm their connection with the declared Institution.

User is obligated to use provided resources only for research conducted at the declared Polish scientific institution.

Certificates / Certfikaty

Certificate can be useful when accessing the PLGrid tools and services. Some applications or tools require user's certificate. For some tools it helps with user identification and enables access without login and password authentication.

In PLGrid two types of certificates are used:

• Simple CA (http://plgrid-sca.wcss.wroc.pl), issued by PLGrid Infrastructure, vaild for 1 year.
• Polish Grid CA (https://plgrid-ca.pl), issued by Polish Certificate Issuing Department, recognized in European Grid Infrastructures, respects EUGridPMA (http://www.eugridpma.org).
   

Helpdesk

Web platform for issue reporting. Tickets/requests are handled by experts from various fields (e.g. software, grants, affiliations, registration, computing, storage, cloud). Experts start working with tickets/requests within 24 h from submission time.

Platform is available at: https://helpdesk.plgrid.pl/.

Metrics / Metryki

Metrics specify details of resources allocated in grants. They are specified when filling a Proper Grant form. If not specified, most metrics will take default values.

Operations staff / Operator PLGrid

PLGrid Operations staff is responsible for supporting users during the registration process and account activation. They also control Proper Grant resource allocation process. Problems are solved by Operations staff via Helpdesk platform.

OPI number

OPI number is a Polish scientific ID. Every PhD graduate receives an individual OPI number. In order to confirm users' affiliations we use OPI database containing information about scientists, their OPI numbers and current affiliations.

Reporting grant usage / Rozliczanie grantu

Access to PLGrid resources is free of charge. Instead at the end of each grant user must provide:

• published works with acknowledgments (more information),
• short report regarding grant resources usage.

Resource grant / Grant obliczeniowy

Resource grant in PLGrid Infrastructure is an agreement between user and PLGrid Infrastructure. This agreement determines specifics of resources provided to user and the time scope of resources availability within the grant. 

There are two types of resource grants:

• trial grant
• proper grant

Resource grants are always associated with a workgroup. Workgroup consists of one or more users and is an entity which negotiates, agrees to, uses and later reports the usage of a grant.

Trial grant / Grant testowy

Trial grant is dedicated for testing purposes in situations when user wants to test what amount of resources or what services they need. Such grant allows for use of 1000 CPU hours and 10 GB of storage in every supercomputer center. It can not be renegotiated. Trial grant lasts one year. After expiration date user can obtain a new trial grant with the same parameters. Users do not have to write reports for trial grant, however reporting publications is still mandatory (via Helpdesk).

Proper grant / Grant właściwy

Proper grant allows for more than basic resource allocation. It is strongly advised that actual scientific work is conducted within proper grants.

In order to obtain a proper grant user representing a Workgroup has to fill a grant request form where they specify their allocation requirements using metrics, as well as motivate their request. It is also advised that they specify which supercomputer centers/clusters they would expect the allocation at. The request is later processed by Operations staff and negotiated with supercomputer centers.

Results of proper grants must be reported by providing scientific publications containing acknowledgements as well as describing the usage of grant resources.

Reviewer / Recenzent

PLGrid expert who prepares reviews for proper grant requests.

Scientific review / Rekomendacja

Every proper grant request must receive a review from a PLGrid expert in the given field of science (Reviewer) before the allocation process begins. The review helps Site Manager make decision during resource allocation.

Site / Ośrodek

PLGrid's supercomputer center that allocates storage and computing power. It is represented by a Site Manager.

Supervisor / Opiekun naukowy

Supervisor is a role automatically obtained by an Academic Employee (affiliated with a Polish scientific institution) while registering their affiliation at PLGrid.

Supervisor role allows for introducing Subordinates (students, PhD students, foreign scientists) into the Infrastructure by claiming that they cooperate with the Supervisor within Supervisor's registered affiliation.

Supervisor is obligated to manage their Subordinates' affiliations by deactivating them when the cooperation has finished. Supervisor is also responsible for their Subordinate's conduct within the Infrastructure.

Subordinate / Podopieczny

A student, PhD student, or foreign scientist who cooperates with a Supervisor within the Supervisor's affiliation and based on this cooperation receives access to PLGrid resources.

Workgroup / Zespół naukowy

Resource grants are always associated with a Workgroup. Workgroup consists of one or more users who can receive roles of Leaders or Members.

Only Workgroup Leaders are entitled to apply for proper grants, negotiate and agree to resource allocation proposal, as well as later report usage of the grant.

All Workgroup Members are entitled to use grants assigned to the group.