Table 1. Stages of the technical life-cycle of ELIXIR Services.

Stage	Definition	Status
Emerging	A resource in active development towards maturity. Emerging Services may have lower reliability compared to Mature Services and go through more changes in their presentation and APIs. ‘Emerging’ status should not exceed 2 years. If an Emerging Service does not become Mature, an “end of service” date should be prominently displayed for at least 6 months before it is withdrawn.	ELIXIR Emerging Services
Mature	An ELIXIR Service that has passed the development stage. It is reliable and active, i.e. new data are being added. If feasible, major changes to its API and/or user interface that may break existing functionality and/or are not fully back-compatible, are notified at least 6 months in advance. A Mature Service relies only on other Mature or Legacy Services. Exceptionally, a Mature Service may rely on an Emerging Service that is close to becoming mature. Service withdrawal should be notified at least 1 year in advance, during which time the Service has Legacy status.	ELIXIR Services
Legacy	A previously Mature Service scheduled for archiving or decommissioning. A Service must spend at least 1 year in the Legacy state before final withdrawal. Reliability should be at the same level as Mature Services, but compromises on content (e.g. data not updated, no new content is added) are allowed.	ELIXIR Services – Legacy