Glossary

(for a larger list see http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/gas/)

  • AAI: Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure. The objective of the AAI is, in a nutshell, to simplify inter-organizational access to web resources. It is deployed by most Swiss universities.[more]
  • AC: Attribute Certificate: Structure similar to a public key certificate with the main difference that it does not contain a public key [more]. For the context surrounding AC and VOMS see http://grid-auth.infn.it/docs/AC-RFC.pdf
  • Attribute: A property of an end entity. In the context of Shibboleth Identity Provider attributes are used to characterize a user.
  • ACL: Access Control List
  • ARC: Advanced Resource Connecter (Nordugrid)
  • ATLAS: A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS (LHC experiment) 
  • AUP: Acceptable Use Policy. The AUPs for the  SMSCG can be found here.
  • BDII: Berkeley Database Information Index
  • CA: Certificate Authority. An internal entity or trusted third party that issues, signs, revokes and manages digital certificates.
  • CE: Computing Element. (Public) front-end to computing resources. Access control and mapping to local resources are performed on this host.
  • CERT: Computer Emergency Response Team (sometimes also refert to as CSIRT)
  • Certificate: Information issued by a trusted party. Used to identify an individual or system.
  • Credentials: Evidence asserting the user’s right to access certain systems (e.g. username, password, etc)
  • CLI: Command Line Interface
  • CMS: Compact Muon Solenoid (LHC experiment)
  • Condor: framework for high throughput computing. [more]
  • CP: Certificate Policy
  • CPS: Certificate Practices Statement
  • CRL: Certificate Revocation List
  • CSIRT: Computer Security Incident Response Team
  • CVS: Concurrent Versions System
  • DAG: Directed Acyclic Graph
  • DN: Distinguished Name: Subject of an X.509 certificate
  • DNS: Domain Name Service
  • EGEE: Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EU-Project)
  • EGI: European Grid Initiative
  • ETICS: e-Infrastructure for Testing, Integration and Configuration of Software
  • GIIS: The Grid Index Information Service is a top-level (typically on country level) node that collects and stores information about the Grid. The information is collected from the GRIS’es and uses an own schema.
  • gLite: Lightweight middleware for Grid computing
  • Globus: The Globus project: Grid R&D
  • GLUE: Grid Laboratory Uniform Environment
  • GOC: Grid Operation Centre (UK)
  • GOCDB: Grid Operations Centre Database
  • GridFTP: Grid File Transfer Protocol
  • GRIS: Grid Resource Information Service collects and stores local Grid information (typically of a site). The information from the GRIS/GIIS are used for match-making, i.e. for selecting the suitable resources for jobs upon their submission.
  • GSI: Grid Security Infrastructure
  • GT: Globus Toolkit
  • HPC: High Performance Computing
  • Identity Provider (IdP): Authority responsible for generating and asserting authentication, authorization and identity information about their users in a security domain
  • IGTF: International Grid Trust Federation: Body with the goal to harmonize and synchronize PMAs policies to establish and maintain global trust relationships in e-Science. See http://www.igtf.org for details.
  • JDL: Job Description Language
  • JOpera: is an open grid workflow management system [more]
  • KnowARC: Grid-enabled Know-how Sharing Technology Based on ARC Services and Open Standards
  • LDIF: LDAP Data Interchange Format
  • LFC: LCG File Catalog
  • LHC: Large Hadron Collider
  • LRMS: Local Resource Management System
  • MPI: Message Passing Interface
  • NDGF: Nordic DataGrid Facility
  • NFS: Network File System
  • NG: NorduGrid
  • NGI: National Grid Initiative. The NGI of Switzerland is SwiNG.
  • Nordugrid: Nordic Grid
  • NTP: Network Time Protocol
  • OMG: Object Management Group
  • PKI: Public Key Infrastructure.Processes and technologies used to issue and manage digital certificates, enabling third parties to authenticate individual users, services and hosts. For the SMSCG see here.
  • Proxy Certificate (PX509):A technique to delegate rights from one system to anothr (remote) system based upon X509 certificates. See http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3820 for more details.
  • RA: Registration Authority (certificates)
  • SAML: Security Assertion Markup Language:an XML framework for exchanging authentication and authorization information. SAML is a standard of OASIS and is the first standard for federated identity.
  • Short-lived X.509 certificate: An X.509 certificate with a life time of less than 1 million seconds (approx. 11 days)
  • SE: Storage Element 
  • Shibboleth:Federated identity management solution from Internet2/MACE (Middleware Architecture Committee for Education). It is the name of the architecture as well as the name of the open source implementation.
  • SLCS: Short-lived credential service: A service returning a short-lived X.509 certificate to a requester after successful authentication
  • SP: Service Provider
  • SWITCHaai: Shibboleth Federation operated within the Swiss higher education and research sector. See http://www.switch.ch/aai for details.
  • SwiNG: Swiss National Grid Association
  • UI: User Interface. Host from where the user interacts with the grid software in the gLite middleware environment.
  • VASH: Voms Attribute from SHibboleth: the name of the Shibboleth Service Provider described in this document. It transfers Shibboleth user attributes into VOMS.
  • VO: Virtual Organization. Arbitrary grouping of people and resources with the goal of conducting a project. A list of the VOs hosted by the SMSCG can be found here.
  • VOMS: VO Management Service
  • WN: Worker Node: the entity where jobs get executed.
  • XACML: eXtensible Access Control Markup Language
  • X.509: ITU-T standard for public key infrastructures. It defines among other things standard formats for certificates. See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2459.txt for details. 

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