The EGI Accounting service stores resource usage records from various services offered by EGI, such as Cloud, HTC and storage systems. It works thanks to a network of message brokers that transfer usage data from the host to a central repository of information. The data is handled securely and can be consulted online through the EGI Accounting Portal.
EGI council members can use EGI accounting services to account for the resource usage of their own services.
Features
EGI Accounting gives:
- Increased control over resource consumption
- Reduced overhead of defining data models, architecture and setup of an accounting system
- Reduced cost of maintaining an accounting infrastructure
- Access to a reliable, high available, high performance service
- User friendly web interface
High-level service architecture
Resource centres that provide compute or storage to the infrastructure have a collector (a stand-alone script or program, or a built in function of their resource system) that gathers accounting metrics formatted into a standardised record format. These metrics are then transferred via a messaging service to the Accounting Repository, which stores and processes the data to produce aggregations that are then sent to the Accounting Portal for display.
The Accounting Portal retrieves topology information on how resource centres relate to national infrastructures and regions from a configuration management database (CMDB) and community affiliation from the AAI service to properly organise the accounting data. Information related to groups or VOs should also contain information about scientific disciplines to allow the Portal to properly classify the resource usage.
Resource centres can either directly publish accounting information to the central Accounting Repository or via an intermediate repository that can be related to an infrastructure (European, regional or thematic etc.).
Service documentation
For community managers and end-users
The link below provides documentation on using the Portal:
For resource providers
The link below provides guidance on using the APEL client:
The link below provides guidance on using the SSM messaging software:
Integration guidelines
If a resource provider or infrastructure would like to integrate with the accounting system through a method not covered by the above then they should consult the EOSC-hub Technical Specification - Accounting.
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