\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article} \pagestyle{plain} %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % ignore this part % \newcommand{\B}{\textbf} % bold font \newcommand{\I}{\textit} % italic font \newcommand{\T}{\texttt} % typewrite % define a simple list \newenvironment{mylist}{ \begin{itemize} \setlength{\itemsep}{0em} }{ \end{itemize} } % same for the project tables \newcommand{\mytlist}[1]{ \vspace*{-1.8em} \begin{mylist} #1 \end{mylist} \vspace*{-2.4em} } % and a simple enum \newenvironment{mynum}{ \begin{enumerate} \setlength{\itemsep}{0em} }{ \end{enumerate} } %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \begin{document} \begin{center} {\LARGE IT Area Projects -- first draft}\\[4em] \begin{tabbing} XXXXXXXXXXXXX \= XXXXXXXXXXXXXX \= \kill \B{Author:} \> Andre Merzky \> \T{}\\ \B{Contributors:} \> Joel Reploge \> \T{}\\ \> Kevin Drew \> \T{}\\ \> Steve Crumb \> \T{}\\[2em] \end{tabbing} \end{center} \begin{abstract} This text documents the ongoing projects of the GGF IT area. \end{abstract} \section{Intro} The GGF IT area supports the GGF administration (office) and community (areas, groups and members) with IT infrastructure. That infrastructure aims at providing help for communication, document management, archiving, presentation etc. Currently, the central pieces of the GGF infrastructure are: \begin{mylist} \item GridForge, a Source Forge Enterprise Software installation, which allows document management, group and area representation, and, to some extent, communication (discussions, trackers). \item Majordomo, a mailing list server, which provides group, area and member communication \item A web server, for www representation and ftp service \item a number of home grown tools which help with various tasks, such as meeting planning, session scheduling, archiving etc. \end{mylist} Although that infrastructure is functioning and in heavy use (GGF office and community rely on it), it has a number of shortcomings: \begin{mynum} \item GridForge, in its current version, is slow and not easily maintained \item GridForge user interface is not intuitive \item Mailing Lists are not integrated in GridForge \item GridForge group and area pages are not extensible \item document archiving is not covering BoFs \item GGF has limited data collection capabilities for group management \end{mynum} This document describes the currently ongoing projects to improve the IT infrastructure, and to address the listed problems. There are additional projects which address community requests for additional IT infrastructure, e.g. for a global GGF use case repository \section{Projects} \subsection{GridForge update} As stated above, GridForge provides the major toolset for ggf community and office work: document management (editing), group representation, and communication. However, there are many complaints about GridForge usability. The next version of the SourceForge (SF) software is promised to address these issues, and to improve performance and usability, while providing the same or better functionality. Even with the new SF interface, the project must consider better and more manageable representation of the group via some sort of ?fa?ade? interface. The two options to be assessed are WIKIs and basic HTML pages. This project is responsible for assessing the new SF software, plans for the technical requirements of the upgrade, and performs the upgrade.\\ \begin{tabular}{|lp{8cm}|} \hline \B{responsible: } & Steve Crumb\\ \B{deliverables:} & \mytlist{ \item evaluate new SF release \item evaluate/prototype fa?ade options \item estimate effort for migration \item ensure that essential (old) tools are still available \item upgrade GridForge }\\ \B{status: } & ongoing\\ \B{deadline: } & end 2005\\ \hline \end{tabular}\\ \subsection{Session Scheduling Request Form} Group session requests for GGF meetings are currently either submitted per mail to office, or by using a GridForge tracker. For scheduling, this information must be copied (manually) to a common format, and schedules created manually. Feedback loops with group chairs, scheduling constraints, and conflict avoidance make this a cumbersome process. The first step for improvement in this project is to simplify session request and scheduling feedback. The received requests are automatically stored into a database backend. A later step will address the scheduling process itself.\\ \begin{tabular}{|lp{8cm}|} \hline \B{responsible: } & Joel Replogle\\ \B{deliverables:} & \mytlist{ \item form prototype \item data base backend \item form online }\\ \B{status: } & prototype\\ \B{deadline: } & mid August 2005 (for GGF15)\\ \hline \end{tabular}\\ \subsection{Use Case Repository} Several GGF groups have collected sets of use cases, in order to scope their work. However, use case collections are not centrally maintained by GGF, and it is difficult to have a coherent picture about existing use cases in GGF. Also, use cases of past groups are not maintained anymore, use cases have different format and layout, they are not searchable, and, in general, difficult to reuse. This project will support current community efforts by providing a common repository for use cases. It will try to provide basic functionality soon, in form of a simple sortable repository, but ultimately will provide means to integrate and maintain all types of GGF use cases and use case templates.\\ \begin{tabular}{|lp{8cm}|} \hline \B{responsible: } & Andre Merzky (\& Craig Lee)\\ \B{deliverables:} & \mytlist{ \item use case submission prototype \item use case table prototype, sortable \item wiki prototype for use case maintenance \item data base backend for archiving \item integration of use case templates \item complex search and combination tools \item progressive deployment }\\ \B{status: } & prototype\\ \B{deadline: } & mid August 2005 (for GGF15)\\ \hline \end{tabular}\\ \subsection{Group and Area Representation} Group and Area descriptions are currently maintained on the entry page of the respective GridForge projects. That entry page has limited design and no extension possibilities. The community wishes to have more (and more traditional) control over group representation, and also wishes to be able to use HTTP pages for group work and dissemination. This project tries to provide that infrastructure, in synchronization with the planned GridForge update. The current plans focus on Wiki technology or standard web pages. The best integrated solution would be to have Wikis natively integrated into GridForge, and indeed that possibility seems available in the next version of SF, due late in 2005.\\ \begin{tabular}{|lp{8cm}|} \hline \B{responsible: } & Andre Merzky\\ \B{deliverables:} & \mytlist{ \item assess wiki integration in GridForge \item design wiki based group and area representation \item migrate current group info to that representation }\\ \B{status: } & planning\\ \B{deadline: } & with or shortly after GridForge update\\ \hline \end{tabular}\\ \subsection{GGF Liason Representation} GGF as standardization body is in contact with other standardization bodies. The people/groups maintaining these contacts are named 'Liaisons', and are to be represented on the GGF web space. That representation exists, but needs improvements.\\ \begin{tabular}{|lp{8cm}|} \hline \B{responsible: } & Joel Replogle\\ \B{deliverables:} & \mytlist{ \item prototype liaison pages \item get feedback from Liaisons \item iterate... }\\ \B{status: } & prototype, waiting for feedback\\ \B{deadline: } & before GGF15 (?)\\ \hline \end{tabular}\\ \subsection{GGF Group Chartering} This project is essentially a data collection project to ``standardize'' the activities surrounding the submission of a finalized charter for group approval. The charter contains key management information, like group milestones, expected documents, expected workshops, which need to be collected and stored in a db. A next step will provide some mining tools that allow querying the data to answer questions like: \begin{mylist} \item What groups are on schedule with their milestones and which are not? \item What groups are intending to submit a draft at the next GGF event? \item What groups a nearing their fulfillment of their charter? \item ... and questions deemed appropriate by the GFSG.\\ \end{mylist} \begin{tabular}{|lp{8cm}|} \hline \B{responsible: } & Steve Crumb\\ \B{deliverables:} & \mytlist{ \item identify requirements for data collection/query \item collect charter from existing groups \item prototype charter submission for new groups \item deploy charter collection \item prototype related query tools \item deploy related query tools }\\ \B{status: } & planning\\ \B{deadline: } & (?)\\ \hline \end{tabular}\\ \subsection{GGF Standards Roadmap} This project aims at a standards roadmap for GGF. That roadmap is supposed to serve two goals: firstly, it will help the community and visitors to navigate the web page, to understand the GGF process, and to get a quick assessement of GGF progress (current and future). Second, it will help GGF (office and community) to have a coherent work plan in terms of standards, and will allow more effective coordination of existing and upcoming standards. The work in this project covers both the collection and creation of the roadmap, and the presentation on WWW.\\ \begin{tabular}{|lp{8cm}|} \hline \B{responsible: } & Joel Replogle\\ \B{deliverables:} & \mytlist{ \item collect data from areas/groups (office, GFSG, groups) \item prototype presentation \item link to existing standards/groups \item allow maintenance }\\ \B{status: } & GFSG started to collect data\\ \B{deadline: } & (?)\\ \hline \end{tabular}\\ \end{document}