Software provision process for EGI

The European Grid Initiative (EGI) provides a sustainable pan-European Grid computing infrastructure for e-Science based on a network of regional and national Grids. The middleware driving this production infrastructure is constantly adapted to the changing needs of the EGI Community by deploying new features and phasing out other features and components that are no longer needed. Unlike previous e-Infrastructure projects, EGI does not develop its own middleware solution, but instead sources the required components from Technology Providers and integrates them in the Unified Middleware Distribution (UMD). In order to guarantee a high quality and reliable operation of the infrastructure, all UMD software must undergo a release process that covers the definition of the functional, performance and quality requirements, the verification of those requirements and testing in production environments.This work is partially funded by the EGI-InSPIRE (European Grid Initiative: Integrated Sustainable Pan-European Infrastructure for Researchers in Europe) is a project co-funded by the European Commission (contract number INFSO-RI- 261323) as an Integrated Infrastructure Initiative within the 7th Framework Programme.Peer Reviewe