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EOSC Architecture

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a federated system designed to enable seamless sharing, discovery, and access to research resources across Europe. It consists of interconnected EOSC Nodes, which can be national, regional, or thematic infrastructures that provide services, datasets, and computational resources to the research community.

At the core of the EOSC architecture are the EOSC Federating Capabilities, a set of key functionalities that allow Nodes to collaborate and offer integrated services. These currently include:

  • Identity and Access Management (AAI) for secure authentication and authorization,
  • Federated Resource Catalogues to facilitate discovery and access to research products,
  • Application Workflow Management for deploying and running scientific applications across multiple nodes,
  • Monitoring and Accounting for tracking resource usage and service performance,
  • Order Management and Helpdesk to streamline service provisioning and user support.

A key component of this architecture is the EOSC Core Innovation Sandbox, an experimental environment of the EOSC EU Node. This sandbox provides a testing ground for  EOSC Pilot Nodes, service providers, developers and end-users to integrate, validate, and refine their services before full production deployment. By using the sandbox environment, prospective EOSC Nodes can ensure compliance with EOSC interoperability standards and progressively adopt core services.

The EOSC EU Node serves as the first fully operational reference implementation, setting a model for interoperability, governance, and federated service delivery. Each EOSC Node must align with the EOSC Interoperability Framework (EOSC-IF) to ensure seamless integration, resource sharing, and compliance with common technical standards.

The EOSC Federation operates as a network of peer-to-peer Nodes, where each contributes to a shared ecosystem, fostering collaboration across disciplines and providing researchers with high-quality, interoperable digital services and datasets.

Pilot Nodes are federated infrastructures (national, regional, or thematic) that aim to become EOSC Nodes by progressively adopting EOSC Core Services like AAI, catalogues, helpdesk, and monitoring. They follow a maturity model, integrating federating capabilities and testing their interoperability in the EOSC Core Innovation Sandbox before full deployment.

Service Providers, on the other hand, offer specific services, datasets, or research products without managing a full infrastructure. They onboard their resources to the EOSC Marketplace or Resource Catalogue, making them accessible to the research community without necessarily integrating federated capabilities.

While Pilot Nodes evolve into EOSC Nodes, Service Providers contribute standalone resources, both enriching the EOSC ecosystem.