Operations structure for the management, control and support of the INFN-GRID/Grid.It production infrastructure

Moving from a National Grid Testbed to a Production quality Grid service for the HEP applications requires an effective operations structure and organization, proper user and operations support, flexible and efficient management and monitoring tools. Moreover the middleware releases should be easily deployable using flexible configuration tools, suitable for various and different local computing farms. The organizational model, the available tools and the agreed procedures for operating the national/regional grid infrastructures that are part of the world-wide EGEE grid as well as the interconnection of the regional operations structures with the global management, control and support structure play a key role for the success of a real production grid. In this paper we describe the operations structure that we are currently using at the Italian Grid Operation and Support Center. The activities described cover monitoring, management and support for the INFN-GRID/Grid.It production grid (spread over more than 30 sites) and its interconnection with the EGEE/LCG structure as well as the roadmap to improve the global support quality, stability and reliability of the Grid service.