Merge pull request #4 from ESA-APEx/bc-initial-descriptions

Added descriptions (draft) for enhancement and toolbox services.

propagation/enhancement.md

@@ -1,12 +1,74 @@
 # Algorithm Enhancement Service
 
-The Algorithm Enhancement Service starts with an assessment of your existing work, leveraging automated benchmarks and expert review
-to enhance efficiency while maintaining the same quality within acceptable error bounds for your application.
+The algorithm enhancement service helps scientists and algorithm developers to transform their research code into a
+performant and stable piece of software that can be run in an operational setting.
+These enhancement activities ensure code quality, maintainability and performance of your algorithm.
+To ensure performant execution on a NoR processing platform which offers openEO or Application Package algorithms,
+additional optimization dedicated for the platform capabilities may be needed.
+The exact requirements, steps, and effort involved in this process can vary heavily from case to case, due to the
+variations in initial implementations and operational requirements.
 
-This service always require an approval from the project officer to start an initial assessment of your work and the
-feasibility of enhancement within a reasonable timeframe. Therefore, the more detailed input you provide in terms of code and
-algorithm description, the more accurate the assessment will be, and the more likely it is that the service can be offered.
-Applications that cannot be sufficiently understood within the assessment period, may be considered too risky for enhancement.
+The code of the enhanced version of the algorithm will be published in a dedicated APEx GitHub repository and algorithm
+providers are encouraged to use it as a basis for further development of the algorithm.
+This way, the version hosted on APEx can be kept up to date.
 
-It's important to note that this service focuses on improving already good and promising algorithms. Therefore, provide
-a compelling motivation for why your algorithm deserves the additional attention and effort.
+The algorithm enhancement service has two phases. In the first phase, the algorithm provider submits their existing
+implementation, including source code, input data, and instructions to build, install and execute their code, together
+with details of any external dependencies to the enhancement team. The enhancement team will then analyze the algorithm
+and estimate the effort for the service, which results in an offer. In the second phase, on acceptance of the offer by
+the provider and by ESA, the enhancement is performed.
+As a result, the service user receives an optimized version of their algorithm code with high code quality.
+Optionally, the enhancement procedure includes a cloudification step, where the algorithm is implemented as an openEO
+User Defined Process (UDP) or Application Package. This makes it possible to host the algorithm on an NoR platform and
+provide it as an on-demand service.
+
+Complementary to this service, the [algorithm hosting service](./hosting.md) is responsible for hosting the algorithms
+prepared for hosting by the algorithm enhancement service. On the other side,
+the [toolbox cloudification service](./toolboxcloud.md) offers a similar set of features aimed at algorithms that are
+already available as part of standalone software packages (toolboxes) and makes them available as on-demand
+APEx-compatible algorithms.
+
+#### Features of the Algorithm Enhancement Service
+
+The algorithm enhancement service offers the following features:
+
+- Analysis of current algorithm implementation and performance.
+- Optimization of the algorithm with respect to computational efficiency.
+  This may include switching to a distributed execution model and improving code quality.
+- Optimization considering the capabilities of target processing platforms.
+- Exploitation of algorithms available on APEx where appropriate, e.g. replacing custom functions with equivalent
+  pre-optimized openEO functions.
+- Delivery of an enhanced implementation of the algorithm that is ready to be listed in the APEx algorithm catalogue.
+
+#### How to use the Algorithm Enhancement Service
+
+To use the service, the first step is to deliver the current algorithm implementation, together with the complementary
+information that is required to make use of it. The necessary components are:
+
+- the source code
+- documentation of dependencies
+- build, installation and execution instructions
+- input data
+- expected outputs
+
+Once this information has been provided, the enhancement team will perform a two-phase analysis. The analysis consists
+of a briefer, standardized analysis phase, followed by a more thorough cost and effort estimate. On acceptance, the
+enhancement team will begin work to enhance and integrate the algorithm on APEx. The exact process of enhancement
+depends on the nature of the initial algorithm and its implementation. Depending on these conditions, the enhanced
+algorithm is integrated into APEx either as an openEO UDP or as an OGC Application Package. Application Packages are
+based upon one or more container images implementing the algorithm in a custom environment.
+
+If the algorithm was originally implemented in accordance with the APEx compliance guidelines, the process can be more
+straightforward. In this case there will be more overlap between the libraries and design patterns used in the initial
+implementation and those required for an optimized APEx version, and the enhancement process will be different and fewer
+changes have to be made to the code base. 
+
+
+#### Intellectual Property Rights
+
+The intellectual property rights to their algorithm implementation remain with the algorithm authors.
+If the algorithm is an implementation of published research, the APEx team reserves itself the non-exclusive
+right to run and further develop the enhanced implementation. The algorithm provider has the right and is encouraged
+to use the enhanced code as a basis for further algorithm development.
+For proprietary algorithms, the rights to publish the source code and run the algorithm remain with the original
+property rights holder.

propagation/toolboxcloud.md

@@ -1,10 +1,55 @@
 # Toolbox Cloudification Service
 
-The Toolbox Cloudification Service focuses on porting functionality from existing (open source) toolboxes into the EO platform
-targeted by your project. This service is designed to enhance the scalability and integration of your toolbox's features
-within an APEx compatible cloud environment.
+The toolbox cloudification service makes individual data processing procedures from existing toolboxes available as
+cloud-based algorithms, compliant with APEx.
+This makes it possible to freely combine functionalities from multiple toolboxes as well as other algorithms registered
+through APEx.
+The service focuses solely on data-processing capabilties of toolboxes and does
+not include visualization features.
+Instead of a file-centric and local processing scheme of a traditional toolbox, key operations can be performed in the
+cloud where EO data archives are directly available as data cubes, where arbitrary extends in time and space can be
+extracted. Furthermore, functions from various toolboxes can be combined in a single workflow through APEx.
 
-The process begins with an assessment of your request to estimate the effort required to cloudify the toolbox. The main
-advantage of this approach is that the specific functionality will also become available as a modular building block for
-other projects. Therefore, it is crucial to provide a compelling justification for why this feature deserves to be 'cloudified'.
+Service users may select functionalities from a toolbox that they would like to have access to as APEx-compliant
+algorithms. The proposed functionalities and their toolbox will then be reviewed by ESA and APEx experts. An effort
+estimation and an offer will be made following the review. On acceptance of the offer, the requested functionalities
+will be provided as an Application Package according to OGC best practice, or as an openEO User Defined Process (UDP).
 
+To ensure interoperability between procedures from different toolboxes, it is necessary to share data using standard
+data formats, writing intermediary files to disk. Users should consider if the flexibility of this approach outweighs
+the performance drawbacks and request deployment as a single, integrated package instead, if performance is critical.
+
+Functionalities made available through the toolbox cloudification service are hosted via the
+APEx [algorithm hosting service](./hosting.md). A similar set of features is offered by
+the [algorithm enhancement service](./enhancement.md), which focuses on improving maturity and performance of algorithms
+and preparing them for hosting on APEx.
+
+#### Features of the Toolbox Cloudification Service
+
+The toolbox cloudification service offers an analysis of the implementation of the toolbox and the requested processing
+capabilities. On the basis of this analysis, an implementation strategy is proposed and executed to provide the
+functionality outside the context of the toolbox as a fully cloud-integrated APEx compliant algorithm.
+
+Projects may benefit from the toolbox cloudification service by bringing key functions from traditional desktop EO
+toolboxes into the cloud, where they can be integrated into large-scale processing workflows.
+Toolboxes evolve over time. If a toolbox migrated to APEx, it shall be kept up to date. This requires maintenance.
+The procedure to support the evolution of toolboxes is yet to be defined.
+
+#### How to use the Toolbox Cloudification Service
+
+In order to use the toolbox cloudification service, a proposal specifies a candidate toolbox and selects key
+functionality for cloudification. This proposal is then submitted to the APEx team. It should contain a short
+justification explaining the need for the selected functionality. ESA reviews the proposal and submits selected
+proposals to the APEx team for analysis and price offer.
+
+In a first phase, the APEx team makes an initial analysis of the candidate toolbox and an assessment of the associated
+proposal. On this basis, the team provides an assessment report to ESA. The report includes a final recommendation of
+the key functionality to be cloudified, a description of the specific cloudification approach, and an effort and cost
+estimation. ESA decides whether to accept the offer.
+
+On acceptance, a team of suitably qualified APEx experts undertakes the cloudification process itself, recasting or
+reimplementing the required functionality in cloud-hosted toolbox modules. In order for the cloudified modules to be
+hosted through APEx, they will be implemented on one of the APEx compliant technologies, such as openEO UDPs and/or
+Application Packages. The more suitable variant depends largely on the original implementation of the toolbox
+functionality. The newly created modules will be deployed through the APEx [algorithm hosting service](./hosting.md) and
+thus become available for direct use and integration into larger cloud-hosted processing workflows.