Report on Base4NFDI service ramp-up procedures (D2.1.2)

Deliverable D2.1.2 Report on Base4NFDI service ramp-up procedures Cornerstones of the Ramp-Up Phase Version 2, October 2025 Authors Christian Schäfer-Neth (0000-0002-6995-8706) Sören Lorenz (0000-0001-8577-6614) https://zenodo.org/records/17304387 Funded by DFG as part of NFDI. Grant Numbers: 521453681, 521460392, 521462155, 521463400, 521466146, 521471126, 521473512, 521474032, 521475185, 521476232 1 Table of contents Overview 2 What to do and when 4 Timeline and meetings 4 Ramp-up (D2.4.2) 6 Tasks of the service team 6 Tasks of Base4NFDI 7 Due dates 7 Portfolio admittance (D2.4.4) 8 Tasks of the service team 8 Tasks of Base4NFDI 8 Overview Here we describe the ramp-up procedures, the respective tasks of the service teams and Base4NFDI, and the associated decision workflows in Base4NFDI’s Ramp-Up Phase. The Ramp-Up Phase is dedicated to ascertaining that a service in the Base4NFDI process completes all necessary steps and prerequisites for rolling out the service for widespread use in a sustainable and scalable manner. At the end of the phase, there is a business model that defines the organisational form of the service operation, quantifies the costs of its provision and documents the necessary long-term financing scheme. The service has been made compliant with relevant legal regulations, in the first place with GDPR. Any required security, backup, and protection measures are in place to ensure integrity and availability of both service and data. Interoperability has been further advanced to make the service an integral part of the NFDI service portfolio and enable it for use in larger contexts, especially for federating within EOSC. This builds upon the ground laid by TA2’s concept of the service portfolio/catalogue1 (D2.2.2) and integration2 (D2.1.1). As it is the case with the Integration Phase, there are two interdependent developments of both the service teams and Task Area 2 of Base4NFDI: ➔ The teams bring the service from its status developed in the Integration Phase into a sustainable and scalable operation. The required actions are described in the work programme of the ramp-up proposal, and the concrete objectives are defined there by corresponding service-specific deliverables and milestones. 2 Report on service integration procedures, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15235863 1 Report on service portfolio framework, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15303622 2 ➔ Base4NFDI is developing the future basic service portfolio of the NFDI, as described in the Base4NFDI proposal,3 and helps the service teams to fit their services coherently into this portfolio. This is summarised by two corresponding Base4NFDI deliverables which should be met at the end of the Ramp-Up Phase: D2.4.2 – Report on conducted service ramp-up, D2.4.4 – Report on portfolio admission for a given service. The Base4NFDI deliverables are detailed by a number of concrete requirements for portfolio (and service) operation4 which will be explained in the following sections. Disclaimers ● General Here, we refer to the status of Base4NFDI’s developments as of September 2025. Several aspects are still under discussion, including the scope of the upcoming service portfolio, its relation to a user-oriented service catalogue, possibly stricter requirements such as SLAs and certifications, and an alignment to processes for non-basic services. This will be addressed in revised versions of this document as matters become clearer. ● Relation of this document to the deliverables of the service teams Here, two sets of service team deliverables have to be considered: ○ Firstly, the ones defined for the Integration Phase, as described in our Report on service integration procedures. These mark the prerequisites for entering the Ramp-Up Phase. From these, single actionable deliverables for the teams have been derived, as detailed in “Requirements for Completion of the Integration Phase”.5 ○ Secondly, there are the corresponding Base4NFDI deliverables for ramp-up, D2.4.3/4, as outlined in this paper. These mark the finalisation of the Ramp-Up Phase. Again, these tasks will be broken down into team-actionable ones and complemented by corresponding work items in the service team's OpenProject workspace. Any results will either be tracked/linked there or in a Google spreadsheet prepared for tracking portfolio-relevant metadata. ● Relation of this document to the ramp-up proposal template The template for the ramp-up application will use the team-oriented, actionable tasks explained above, both for documenting the successful integration using the OpenProject tasks mentioned above, and for defining the objectives of the Ramp-Up Phase. 5 “Requirements for Completion of the Integration Phase”, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17107044 4 “Report on Base4NFDI service integration procedures”, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15235863 → notes_on_portfolio_requirements 3 “Base4NFDI - Basic Services for NFDI”, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10245518 3 What to do and when The above scheme illustrates what is to be done by Base4NFDI (beige) and service teams (green) during the Ramp-Up Phase. The service team’s own workplan, tasks, and deliverables mark the pivotal point of these activities, and the Base4NFDI deliverables D2.4.x mark the final goal. Above all, the service team is asked to follow its own work plan and provide the documentation as shown. Bases4NFDI is responsible for supporting the teams with appropriate templates and guidelines, and mapping the teams' individual achievements to the portfolio requirements and the overarching deliverables of Base4NFDI. In the end, TA2 confirms the appropriateness of the content of the reports and TA3 their completeness. Based on this, the responsible bodies of NFDI decide on the inclusion of the basic service in the NFDI service portfolio. 4 Timeline and meetings The following table indicates what will have to be done before, after, and during a full two-year Ramp-Up Phase. If the phase will be shorter because of faster progress or limited funding, the times must be carefully adjusted. 5 Before applying for ramp-up Discussion of ramp-up concept in a section meeting Meeting with TA2: ramp-up overview and respective responsibilities of service team and Base4NFDI, evaluation of necessity of quality and software assessments, discussion and decision on the actual length of the phase After acceptance by the consortia assemblance, before ramp-up Collection of scientific senate’s requirements (TFGS) Month 1 Ramp-up kick-off with Base4NFDI (TA2, service stewards, representatives of TA3 and TA4) Month 15 Interim report to scientific senate, at the request of the senate with an accompanying vote of the TEC Before Month 18 Consultation with TA2 and decision on a business model Month 22–23 3rd self-assessment of software quality (if applicable / developed as part of the service) Preparation of final reports on adoption, interoperability, success stories, quality, sustainability, technological readiness, security, and legal compliance Check of fulfilment of portfolio-relevant requirements Month 23 Final report to scientific senate: providers, business model, interoperability with portfolio and beyond Month 24 Confirmation of successful completion of the Ramp-Up Phase, based on the reports/checks, and final report Presentation of the results in a section meeting Announcement of the successful completion of the Ramp-Up Phase Inclusion of the service in the portfolio Ramp-up (D2.4.2) At the end of the Ramp-Up Phase, the service shall be ● of a technology readiness level of 9 or equivalent maturity, ● of sufficient software quality if software is developed as part of the service, ● legally compliant, ● operational in a scalable state based on a sustainable perspective. Most of these requirements are covered with the aforementioned portfolio requirements and the documentation of their fulfilment. The majority of these will have been ticked off already during the Integration Phase, leaving the ones discussed below.6 Tasks of the service team The team will have to define and describe how the quality, legal, and operational requirements for the service have been fulfilled for the subsequent operational phase. Maturity / quality A sufficient degree of maturity is characterised by the fact that the service, its frameworks, standards, or practices are widely adopted and trusted. This should be plausibly documented. In the case of a predominantly technical service, this can be achieved according to the TRL concept, stating that the service is operational in the intended environment (TRL 9).7 If applicable, the team should as well conduct and document the final self-assessment of their software, as described for the Integration Phase.8 Legal compliance The service teams shall confirm/document, for each of the involved service providers, ● that the service complies with GDPR, ● how personal data is processed and protected, including relevant technical-operational measures and data processing activities ● how service/data privacy is maintained, including relevant TOMs and VTs, ● the data protection and backup measures in place. If parts of this are not applicable to the service, e. g., because no backups are needed, this should be stated accordingly. 8 as above, → notes_on_software_quality 7 as above, → p. 12 6 “Report on Base4NFDI service integration procedures”, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15235863 → notes_on_portfolio_requirements 6 Operation, scalability and sustainability From the Integration Phase, there should be (an) assigned provider(s) of the service and a drafted operational concept. This shall be fully developed into a business model, and there must be clear commitments to provide the service. In cooperation with the designated service providers, the teams will have to come up with ● a business model, including information on costs, funding, and relevant applicable aspects of service operation and maintenance (personnel amount and qualification, hardware and software components, licensing and subscriptions, user support, documentation, web presence, onboarding and training) ● written commitments of the providers. We suggest that these documents cover a service operation time span of at least five years, which is a typical timeframe of IT infrastructure renewals. Tasks of Base4NFDI Together with the service stewards, TA2 will support the team by identifying outcomes of their work that are relevant to these reports and guide the compilation. TA2 will support the team in generalising the TRL concept in terms of overall service maturity, applying it to their specific use cases, and conducting the software assessment. To facilitate the compilation of legal documents and the business model, TA2 will provide templates, guides, and checklists that are targeted to different, typically to be expected technical and non-technical service contexts. TA2 is happy to organise specific team meetings addressing these issues. TA2 supports the team in tracking all relevant achievements in OpenProject and provides customised electronic forms for related checklists. The Base4NFDI training coordinator consults the team on training - especially relevant aspects of scalability and maintenance. Due dates The business model should be ready by month 18 of the Ramp-Up Phase. All other reports, policy descriptions, and assessments should be available by the end of the Ramp-Up Phase. As there will be more than one service in ramp-up, the actual preparation of the documents should be scheduled individually, together with Base4NFDI. 7 Portfolio admittance (D2.4.4) Tasks of the service team At the end of the Ramp-Up Phase, a short overview of the service and the results of the phase must be written, focusing on major achievements, offerings, and benefits. This report will be published as a news item on the Base4NFDI website. In addition, there must be a presentation of the Ramp-Up Phase results in a meeting of the respective section after the phase has ended. Tasks of Base4NFDI At the end of the Ramp-Up Phase, TA2 will review the tracked results and confirm that all requirements in terms of content have been met, while TA3 will do the same in terms of completeness. This will be formally reported to the scientific senate, and the responsible persons/committees of the NFDI will decide on the inclusion of the service in the portfolio. Following a positive decision, the portfolio manager makes the service available in the catalogue. 8