The Italian node of the European Research Infrastructure ELIXIR was formally established as a Joint Research Unit (JRU) named the Italian Bioinformatics Infrastructure (ELIXIR-IIB or ELIXIR-IT). ELIXIR-IT is coordinated by the National Research Council (CNR) and currently includes
30 partners, including several universities, research institutes, and public providers of Cloud and High-Performance Computing (HPC) services (for updates on the composition of the partnership, visit the ELIXIR-IT website at https://elixir-italy.org/) (hereinafter referred to as ELIXIR-IT).
The Italian Node of ELIXIR aims to establish the Italian Bioinformatics Research Infrastructure (IIB), distributed across multiple centers. Its goal is to support all Italian researchers working in the fields of Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, promoting the exchange and development of skills,
systematizing platforms for the production of omics data and ICT with a rich set of internationally recognized bioinformatics resources that are publicly available, and contributing to their integration within the European infrastructure.
Another primary goal of ELIXIR-IT is to organize training activities, both basic and advanced, in various application areas of Bioinformatics, in order to foster the training of young bioinformaticians, a demand that is growing rapidly at national and international level.
The activities of ELIXIR are divided into technological areas, called platforms. They coordinate the provision of high-quality services for life sciences and lead the integration of national services within the ELIXIR infrastructure.
ELIXIR-IT includes six operational platforms (Compute, Data, Interoperability, Tools, Omics, and Training).
The use of the services provided is open to the entire national scientific community and businesses, upon specific request through the methods and policy defined by ELIXIR-IT, after reading, understanding, and explicitly accepting the terms and conditions outlined in this document.
These AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) apply to the services within the Compute platform.
The Compute platform offers specialized and customizable bioinformatics analysis services, computing, and storage services. These include the Laniakea in-cloud platform as an on-demand workflow management system for the analysis of biological data, the IaaS (Infrastructure as a
Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) platforms for hosting and distributing bioinformatics tools and services.


Definitions:

Service Manager: The individual who, in coordination with the Compute Platform Leaders of ELIXIR-IT, manages the service offered within the Platform and/or included in the ELIXIR-IT Service Delivery Plan. The Service Manager is responsible for ensuring access, managing, and
monitoring the performance of the provided service.

System Administrator of the Compute Platform: Anyone within the entity providing the service in ELIXIR-IT who is assigned to manage the resources on behalf of the Service Manager.

Service Provider: The entity that, as a member of ELIXIR-IT, provides a service within the Compute Platform, such as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, or HPC.

User: Anyone who is granted access or use of the services instantiated by ELIXIR-IT for any reason.

Service Access Administrator User: A system administrator with the necessary privileges to manage cloud resources, add users, and administer services.
Users of the services offered by the ELIXIR-IT Compute Platform are required to comply with the following terms and conditions:

  1. The processing is carried out solely and exclusively based on an agreement/project that allows identifying the purpose of the research activity to be conducted;
  2. The User commits to adhering to all of the following conditions and those specified in the document “Acceptable Use Policy – Conditions for the use of IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and HPC services provided by ELIXIR-IT,” which outlines the conditions for using individual services, Terms of Use, QM Policy, ELIXIR-IT Services Privacy Policy, if applicable to the specific service of interest. The user must be identified through Life Science AAI or another equivalent two-factor authentication system;
  3. Access is conditioned upon prior approval by the Service Manager;
  4. The Service Access Administrator may, at their discretion, grant access to Users for the resources assigned to them under the following conditions:
    a. The Service Access Administrator commits to identifying any User they grant access to and will be able to provide ELIXIR-IT with the list of such Users at any time;
    b. The Service Access Administrator commits to having this AUP, as well as the documents listed in point 1), and any updates signed by all Users they grant access to, along with the usage regulations for the IT resources adopted by ELIXIR-IT. The service access administrator must block access for users who do not accept the new versions of the cited documents. They also commit to verifying that users have completed a basic IT security course, possibly delivered through e-learning, as provided by the user’s institution/entity;
    c. The Service Access Administrator DOES NOT share privileged access to the resources assigned to them;
  5. The User DOES NOT share their access credentials to the ELIXIR-IT services;
  6. The User commits to promptly following any instructions communicated by the Service Manager;
  7. The User commits to reporting any violation of these conditions to the Service Manager;
  8. The Service Access Administrator agrees that the resources they instantiate will be subject to periodic security scans and commits to promptly resolving or mitigating any vulnerabilities that are flagged, following any suggestions received;
  9. The use of resources is granted only for the purposes outlined in the founding act of the ELIXIR-IT JRU;
  10. The User accepts that ELIXIR-IT and the Service Provider cannot guarantee the continuity of the service although offering assistance and committing to promptly resolving any service interruption issues;
  11. The User accepts that, unless explicitly agreed, ELIXIR-IT and the Service Provider cannot be held responsible for data backup;
  12. The User accepts that logs will be kept on the use of the services offered by the ELIXIR-IT Compute Platform according to current regulations and the regulations of CNR and the entities providing the services, as well as based on the Regulation for the use of IT resources in the ICT infrastructure part of ELIXIR-IT;
  13. The User accepts that personnel provided by the partner entities of the JRU, contributing to the operation of the center, may monitor the resources used;
  14. The Compute Platform Administrators, upon delegation from the Service Manager, may provide support in response to a specific request from the User and after configuring access to the machines via SSH key by the user;
  15. If the user requests maintenance intervention, they are responsible for backing up their data, as any potential data deletion following the maintenance intervention will not be charged to the personnel provided by ELIXIR-IT and the Service Provider.

ELIXIR-IT reserves the right to modify this document in the future. The content of the new versions will completely replace the current version and will have the same value as this document. New versions will be published on the ELIXIR-IT website at least one month before they come into effect, and a copy will be sent via email to all Users using the email address registered, giving them the opportunity to decline acceptance. Failure to accept the new version will result in the loss of the right to use the resources. Continuing to use the services provided by the Compute Platform after the new version comes into effect will imply its acceptance.
A violation of this AUP may result in the suspension or revocation of the User’s access to the resources offered on the service provided.