Glossary

Definitions

Application
An action, information product, or service (including consultancy), which makes use of one or more DestinE DT services or output as an input.

Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is the capacity of an algorithm to assimilate information to perform tasks that are characteristic of human intelligence, such as recognizing objects and sounds, contextualizing language, learning from the environment, and problem solving.

Aviso
Data notification service supporting geographically distributed workflow automation. It allows users to track DestinE data events, trigger user events, and easily send and receive notifications.

Cloud-ready
A cloud-ready application is a software program that has been designed and developed to run on a cloud computing infrastructure

Contractor
A natural or legal person with whom a procurement contract has been signed.

Co-design
Coordinated definition and implementation of a DestinE technical capability, Use case, Application or Service between individual or all of the DestinE Entrusted Entities and Users or contractors.

Data Adaptor
Data Adaptors are the core element of the software stack of a data bridge, which build the Harmonised Data Access. The adaptors must be specifically configured to the source data, services and infrastructure, taking into account the respective APIs or other access methods, user authentication, data structure, etc.

Data Bridge
A Data Bridge is part of the DestinE data lake and provides an interface to the DestinE DT data. Bridges consist of:
– a software stack which provides a unified API towards the other DestinE elements;
– dedicated compute capabilities on which the software stack is implemented;
– dedicated data storage capabilities (Data Warehouse).

Data Holding or Data store
Data Holding denotes external to DestinE infrastructures or services, which provide data of relevance for DestinE.

Data Warehouse
Part of Data Lake that contains and provides access to structured data, ready to be used in the frame of a Digital Twin, and/or being output from a Digital Twin referenced, and available for user retrieval.

DestinE Beneficiaries
Institutions or individuals using decision support tools that build on output of the DT or output of downstream applications of DestinE Users. This category also includes institutions or individuals who rely on advice drawing on DestinE output, e.g., ministries or administrations at local level.

DestinE Contribution Agreements
Agreements between the European Union and ECMWF, ESA and EUMETSAT on the implementation of the DestinE initiative under the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union as amended in 2023.

DestinE Core Service Platform (DESP)
Self-standing DestinE System Component, interfacing with the Data Lake, Digital Twins and Digital Twin Engine, offering a web entry point to DestinE Data, Services and Applications. It is based on an open, flexible, federated, scalable and secure cloud-based architecture. The DESP will connect to selected existing and future HPC and to multi-cloud computing. It provides an environment for evidence-based policy and decision-making supporting tools, and interfaces to the DestinE Data Lake. It will allow users to customise the DESP, integrate their own data and develop their own applications.

DestinE Data
Earth-system monitoring and prediction system output as provided by the Destination Earth Digital Twins, as well as impact relevant applications and services data provisioned via the Data Lake.

DestinE Data Lake
Self-standing DestinE System Component, interfacing with the Core Service Platform, Digital Twins and Digital Twin Engine, built from geographically distributed physical elements, that references and provides seamless access via GUIs or APIs to data in accordance with the DestinE Data Portfolio. The Data Lake supports near-data processing to maximize throughput and service scalability.

DestinE Data Portfolio
The DestinE Data Portfolio is tailored to user needs and composed of federated data, Digital Twin data and DestinE user generated data with a specified and agreed lifecycle. The DEDL will implement and provide access to the DestinE Data Portfolio following the DestinE Access and Data governance, as well as respecting pre-existing data policies and including quality assurance.

DestinE Digital Twin Engine (DTE)
Software-defined environment to operate DestinE’s DTs and manage their corresponding control and data flows across distributed HPC and cloud computing resources. It provides a common system approach to a unified orchestration of Earth-system Digital Twins. Moreover, it creates a framework for the fusion of observations with Earth-system simulations and the integration of applications targeting specific impact-sectors via selected use cases. The DTE enables the porting and optimization of codes, developing and managing the digital twin workflows, and provides the data handling and model interaction and interactivity capabilities that run on diverse HPC and cloud infrastructures including the Data Warehouse hosted on the data bridges. The DTE concept focuses on interoperability and interactivity and delivers the expected access agility and performance for the digital twins and associated data access.

DestinE System
System composed of the Core Service Platform (DESP), the Data Lake (DEDL), and the Digital Twin Engine (DTE) components.

DestinE User
Institutions or individuals interacting with DESP, DEDL and/or a DT, thus exploiting DestinE capabilities, output products or services to achieve their objectives. These may include researchers, agencies implementing policies, or more generally civil society (companies, media, NGO, etc.).

DestinE user institutions ingest DestinE output data for further processing in their own applications. These are typically expert users, e.g. in research, national hydro-meteorological services or environment agencies.

According to the DestinE Contributing Agreement, “DestinE is initially aimed at professional public sector users [policy users] but is planned to evolve to encompass a wider user base including the scientific communities and the private sector”.

Digital Twin(s) (DT)s
Highly accurate replicas of the Earth-system that simulate the system’s behaviour, allowing to monitor and predict environmental change, test scientific hypotheses and adaptation scenarios. DestinE’s DTs combine several cutting-edge Earth-system models and Earth observations, as well as advanced data analytics and integration and interoperability with impact sector applications. They are DestinE system components, interfacing with the Digital Twin Engine, offering a seamless production service of actionable knowledge for users that results from the fusion of observational and simulated data of the physical Earth system and of impact-sector relevant information.

DT1: Digital Twin on Environmental Extremes

DT2: Digital Twin on Climate Change Adaptation

Digital Twin Software Suite (DTSS)
The Digital Twin Software suite is a suite of modelling and data processing software used by the Digital Twin Engine to run simulations.

End-user applications & services
User-driven service provisioning through (a) platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for access to resources for application and service development and to create users’ own work environments and adding data, and (b) software-as-a-service (SaaS) for “consuming” the functionalities of the digital twins as dedicated services through well-defined interfaces and APIs, with a potential evolution into a digital-twin-as-a-service (DTaaS).

Entrusted Entity
Entities entrusted by the European Commission with the implementation of Destination Earth by means of Contribution Agreements, i.e. ECMWF, ESA and EUMETSAT.

Entrusted Tasks
Tasks entrusted by the European Commission to ECMWF, ESA, or EUMETSAT under the DestinE Contribution Agreement as specified in Annex I (Technical Annex) of that agreement.

Harmonised data access
Harmonised Data Access is the logical function utilised by the Data Lake to represent a unified API and harmonised access to distributed data to the users. Data adaptors are the essential element in the provision of a harmonised interface for the user to data since they facilitate such data access to federated, distributed, diverse and heterogeneous data holdings. The harmonised data access is the core function building the data lake and data warehouse.

HPC infrastructure
HPC Infrastructure denotes distributed, scalable HPC and data handling resources, which offer extreme-scale simulation and observational data generation and processing capability. The HPC Infrastructure in DestinE builds on EuroHPC and European National resources, and contributes to federating European HPC and data handling infrastructure resources connected through GEANT.

Impact Sector
Policy domain in which the outputs of the DT are expected to enhance the ability to predict the effects of different policy/management scenarios or support the implementation of policies or management decisions. Possible impact sectors include, for example, water management, agriculture and forestry, renewable energy management, air quality management, urban development, maritime or air transport, biodiversity protection, disaster risk mitigation, and climate impact assessments.

Industrial Contract
A contract, purchase order or work order signed between the Contractor and ESA under which the Contractor provides services, supplies, or works for the implementation of the Entrusted Tasks, and any amendments thereto.

Key Performance Indicators
Indicators which serve for monitoring, reporting and calibrating purposes as well as for assessing the respective benefits realisation process and outcome.

Machine learning
Machine learning, is a field of statistical research for training computational algorithms that split, sort and transform a set of data to maximize the ability to classify, predict, cluster or discover patterns in a target dataset. It is fundamentally a data-driven approach.

Models
Models are (typically large) software applications that represent different aspects of the Earth system or other systems influenced by changes in the Earth system. Models can be physics-based, derived using machine learning algorithms or a combination of both.

Partnership Agreement
Agreement between a DestinE User and one or more of the Entrusted Entities. It defines common objectives, roles and commitments between the parties involved. It includes indicators to measure the success of the activity. Partner contributions are considered by default as an in-kind contribution from all sides.

Pilot Service
Service-like provision of information or tools that demonstrates the Service for a limited duration of time. Pilot Services supports the qualification of their products, engage users in co-designing potential future Services, and may not reach the service levels expected from Services, notably with respect to timeliness and throughput.

Polytope
Web service providing efficient access to hypercubes of DestinE Digital Twin data, also federating access between geographically distributed resources. Users can access the data via a client Python package.

Procurement Contract
A contract, purchase order or work order signed between the Contractor and one of the Entrusted Entities under which the Contractor provides services, supplies, or works for the implementation of the Entrusted Tasks, and any amendments thereto.

Service
Regular provision of technological capabilities, resources, data, information  products or tools to meet user needs, including their management across a variety of digital infrastructures. Services in DestinE handles and innovates complex workflows related to Earth system information generation and delivery, facilitates the management of complex monitoring, prediction and projection systems, and makes components available for use in different digital contexts to enable rich interaction in the wider digital environment.

The services developed and implemented by DestinE provide free and open access to tools, software and platforms.

Stakeholder
Policy or research institution or company with a substantial interest in the development of one or more of the DestinE components (DESP, DEDL, DT) as a Beneficiary, a User, a provider of technology or infrastructure, or as a responsible party for the policy objectives of DestinE.

System Integration and Verification
Functional Integration & Verification (I&V) and Testing of DestinE system components and interfaces of the DestinE architecture, in order to demonstrate its readiness for a routine service provision and ensure the proper functioning of all system components as one, integrated system.

Use Case
Demonstration of DestinE capabilities for a specific application.

User Partnership
Structured work relation between the Entrusted Entities and policy institutions from EU services, EU Member State services (national, regional, local levels) and, possibly, global institutions. User partnerships aim to design sustainable services throughout the lifetime of DestinE in a way that corresponds to the specific needs of the users. (Reference: DestinE Contribution Agreement).

User partnerships are established via Partnership Agreements.

Abbreviations and acronyms

3E  
3 Entrusted Entities Partnership (ESA – ECMWF – EUMETSAT)

3EDL                   
3 Entrusted Entities Data Lakes including ESA Data Lake, ECMWF Data Store, and EUMETSAT Big Data Services

AI
Artificial Intelligence

API  
Application Programming Interface

AUX
Auxiliary data or information

AWS 
Amazon Web Services

BD
Big Data    

CaaS  
Container as a Service

CAMS   
Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring System

CDS         
Climate Data Store

COG  
Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF

COM
European Commission

CSC DA
Copernicus Data Access

CPU
Central Processing Unit

CSC 
Copernicus Space Component

DaaS 
Data as a Service

DestinE  
Destination Earth initiative

DCG  
DestinE Coordination Group

DEDL     
DestinE Data Lake

DEM
Digital Elevation Model

DESP
DestinE Core Service Platform

DG-CNECT       
Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology

DIAS      
Data and Information Access Services

DOI      
Digital Object Identifier

DP
Data Portfolio

DS
Data Store

DT
Digital Twin

DTE
Digital Twin Engine

DTSS 
Digital Twin Software Suite

E2E    
End-to-End

ECMWF 
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

ECV    
Essential Climate Variable

EDC 
Euro Data Cube

EO    
Earth Observation

ERA5   
ECMWF Reanalysis v5

ESA   
European Space Agency

EU    
European Union

EuroHPC
The European High Performance Computing (HPC) Joint Undertaking (JU)

EUMETSAT        
European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites

EWC     
European Weather Cloud

FTP
File Transfer Protocol

GB  
GigaByte

GDPR 
General Data Protection Regulation

GIS
Geographical Information System

GPU 
Graphics Processing Unit

GRIB2 
General Regularly distributed Information in Binary form v2

GUI    
Graphical User Interface

HAD
Harmonised Data Access

HPC   
High Performance Computing

HTTP 
Hypertext Transfer Protocol

I&V     
Integration & Validation

IaaS        
Infrastructure as a Service

ICD      
Interface Control Document

IF      
Interface

IIS 
Internet Information Services

IoT
Internet of Things

ITT    
Invitation to Tender

JRC       
Joint Research Centre

LAN      
Local Area Network

LCLU 
Land Cover / Land Use

MCC     
Multi-cloud-computing

MIDAS     
Modelling Inventory and Knowledge Management System of the European Commission

ML             
Machine Learning

NGO
Non-Governmental Organisation

OGC 
Open Geospatial Consortium

OSS       
Open-Source Software

PaaS 
Platform as a Service

PB
PetaByte

PHP
Hypertext Processor

QA       
Quality Assurance

QC
Quality Control

RAM 
Random Access Memory

REST API 
Representational State Transfer API

RS   
Reference System

S3  
AWS Simple Storage Service

SaaS 
Software as a Service

SAB      
Strategic Advisory Board

SIMPL   
Smart Middleware Platform

SLA
Service Level Agreement

SoW   
Statement of Work

SQL              
Structures Query Language

SRA
Sentinels Resource Allocation

SSRS  
System-specific Security Requirement Statement

TB 
TeraByte

TBC     
To Be Confirmed

TBD  
To Be Decided

TIFF 
Tagged Image File Format

TN  
Technical Note

UAP
User Application Portfolio

VVUQ
Verification, validation & uncertainty quantification

VA 
Vulnerability Assessment

WAN     
Wide Area Network

WMO 
World Meteorological Organization