Data Management Service Roles
General overview of roles
ECDMS operator
The (SME) organization that is officially offering the ECDMS is legally responsible for the operation of the ECDMS and for data protection issues. It is therefore called the ECDMS operator and has full access to all infrastructure and service components, as well as the data stored in the system. It may delegate the operation of the ECDMS to a professional operator, who is called the data processor. In this case European legislation holds the ECDMS operator responsible for ensuring that the data processor complies with relevant data protection legislation.
Productive ECDMS operation
The ECDMS operator defines the final data center environment in which the productive ECDMS will be hosted. If the ECDMS operator chooses to delegate operations to an ECDMS data processor, i.e. any commercial provider of data center services, the project consortium will hand over all virtual machine images that the ECDMS comprises to the ECDMS data processor – otherwise directly to the ECDMS operator.
ECDMS data processor
As noted above the data processor may optionally be involved for the practical operation of the ECDMS on behalf of the ECDMS operator. The latter remains legally responsible for the operation and data protection according to European data protection legislation. In the case where a data processor is engaged by the ECDMS operator, the data processor takes over the full access rights to all infrastructure and service components as well as the data stored in the system.
ECDMS user
The customers using the E-COMPASS data mining services (typically these are e-Shop owners) are in the following sections called ECDMS users. They register once at the E-COMPASS Cockpit (ECC) and provide the ECDMS access to their web analytics systems, i.e. typically Google Analytics or Piwik. In return they get access to the ECC.
Detailed description of the ECDM data processor
For the de facto operator of the ECDM services – which will probably be an ECDM data processor – the roles during the operation will probably need to be distinguished in some more detail. Usually in data center operation there a different responsibilities for the operation of servers, databases and the services running.
Datacenter facility management
Duty: operation of the data center building, operation and control of physical access management
Access rights: full access to the data center facility, physical access to servers, but no logical access to server infrastructure, databases or services
Hardware administration
Duty: operation of the physical compute and storage hardware
Access rights: full access on the physical infrastructure and therefore also on the databases and services deployed to it
Virtualization Management
Duty: Management of Hypervisors on the physical infrastructure, Management of the deployment of Virtual Machines (VMs), management of Storage Area Networks (SANs) or Network Attached Storage (NAS), Cloud platform management (e.g. Cloud Foundry and/or OpenStack)
Access rights: full access on the physical infrastructure and therefore also on the databases and services deployed to it
Scaling management
Duty: scaling of the physical resources and virtual machines to the demands of the load generated by the users of the ECDMS. Ideally the scaling of the infrastructure and service instances should be done automatically by means of cloud platform management technology, such as e.g. Cloud Foundry. That would involve the real-time monitoring of all parameters that can increase the system load on the different services and IT infrastructure
Access rights: limited access to the virtualization management and monitoring services
Database administration
Duty: operation of databases
Access rights: limited access to physical hardware or VMs on which the database service is deployed, full access to database
ECDM Service adminstration
Duty: deployment and maintenance of ECDM services deployed to VMs or directly to the physical compute infrastructure
Access rights: limited access to physical hardware or VMs on which the ECDM service is deployed, full access to the service.
Service monitoring
Duty: configuration, deployment and maintenance of monitoring services providing information on the system load, such as
- number of E-Shops using the ECDMS
- number of products monitored for each E-Shop
- number of visitors per E-Shop
Access rights: limited access to physical hardware or VMs on which the monitoring service is deployed, full access to the monitoring service, limited access to certain information from ECDM services.
