Technical experiences of adopting Sakai at Umeå University
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Transcript of Technical experiences of adopting Sakai at Umeå University
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Technical experiences of adopting Sakai at Umeå University
Daniel Lind, Umeå [email protected]
2nd European Sakai ConferenceStockholm, 2009-05-06
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Agenda
• Background• Project• Surrounding infrastructure• Archiving and porting• Problems encountered• Improvements• Maintenance
– Database– Management model
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Umeå University
• Founded in 1965• 4 faculties• 50 departments• 29000 students• 4000 employees• www.umu.se
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Background
• 2001– LMS system in Ping Pong
• Spring 2008– CLE review by Göran Landgren
• June 2008– Vice Chancellor decided to replace Ping Pong
with Sakai• Autumn 2008
– Vanilla Sakai pilot• December 2009
– First release of Sakai at UmU
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Project
• Goal:– Adopt Sakai
• Integrate to the web complex• Adjust to the IT Infrastructure• Import extra tools
– SiteStats, Melete
• Skin
– Phase out Ping Pong• Plan porting of data to Sakai• Archiving of data in Ping Pong
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Project setup sep 2008
• System owner– IT Office
• Workgroup– 6 persons with key positions
• Project– Project manager– Project group
• ~7 persons
• Budget of 200 000 euro
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Project estimation
• Total of 2200 hours• Sep 2008 – Dec 2009• Jump start thanks to Stockholm
– Code– Experience
• Key tasks not yet fully finished:– CM
• Intermediate external site creation
– Phase out Ping Pong
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IT infrastructure at UmU
• LDAP– Employee and student info– Course info– Organisation info
• CAS– SSO
• Shibboleth / SimpleSAMLphp– SAML for federated SSO– Other Swedish Universities
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IT infrastructure cont.
• uPortal– Student portal– Entry to course sites– Share data storage with MyWorkspace
• InfoGlue– CMS– Plain HTML pages– Help pages…
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Sakai installation
• Cambro– Contest– Virtual complement to class room, conference room etc
• MySQL• RedHat 5• Production
– 4 servers (Quad-core, 8GB RAM)• 1 load balancer and SAML• 2 Tomcat servers• 1 database/file server
– 24x7 monitoring, diesel power backup• Test - 1 server (virtual)
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Development enviroment
• Development server– Same as production servers
• Windows and Linux client laptops• Samba from server• Individual network port ranges
– 8000+, 9000+, 10000+…– Problem with incoming mail
• Eclipse remote debugging
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Archiving and porting
• 300GB data in Ping Pong• Problems
– What medium for “eternity” archiving:– Paper, DVD, Tape, HD
– What about taped lectures, chats, etc?– No national guidelines yet!
• A preview from National archive
– Ping Pong as a black box • Exporting the whole db• What formats can Ping Pong export into?• What formats do Sakai accept?
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Porting cont.
• Problems cont:– “We want to continue to use it”
• Strategy for Sakai archiving– All paper?– We don’t care – but not in Sakai?– Guidelines first!
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Porting cont.
Lessons learned porting/archiving:• Importance of standards• Time and money• Declare how archiving is done early• Open systems• No access to db===“bad”• The archive has to be indexed and
searchable by regulations
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Tuning
• Tuning is necessary already from the start:– MySQL– Tomcat– Sakai– JVM
• Real life examples• Missing in the installation guide?
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Open Source
• Users interpretation of Open Source:– “We can do what we want with it
because we got the code.”• Approx. 30 items on wish list!
– From “Version control” to “tool naming”.
• What about a commercial system?– “When will the system support
personal site layouts?” • All about investment revenue!
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Cooperation
• Code from Stockholm• What to cooperate about?
– Specific tools, manuals, upgrades– Requirements, code, test, bug tracking,
support
• Possibly a national se-sakai level, but:– No new Sakai community!
• Session later today
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Problems encountered
• Data quality in campus system– Never used before
• MyISAM vs InnoDB– Switch took 2 minutes– Sakai didn’t complain about no transaction
support• Site sections
– Missed both settings in sakai.properties and insert to CM_SEC_CATEGORY_T table
• Performance– Tuning DB– Test & quizzes tool
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Problems cont.
• Help– Google
• Web, Sakai Jira …– Sakai-dev list
• History at gmane.org– Doc in code folders…
• Contacting teachers– Maintenance time slots – how to inform except
MOTD– Forcing site owners to a special site.
• Opt-outs
• Statistics– What’s the usage of Sakai?– Are the sites active?
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Problems cont.
• Language– Swedish vs. English:– Either swedish correct or english or
none– ”Kurs website” instead of ”course
website”– Mostly minor problems but users are
annoyed.• Site data porting from pilot to production:
– Compress and download– Fortunately only a handful sites
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Improvements
• Documentation– Database doc– Usage doc /Help
• Code– Single Sing-On support– Technical overall Sakai system doc
• ”Sakai for dummies”• Videos are great!
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Improvements cont.
• System– “A site for site owners”– Native multi languages support– Version control in resources tool– Statistics on system level– Open but password protected sites
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Database maintenance
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Database maintenance cont.
• 304 tables• 2197 columns• If a change is necessary – what is
affected?• How to change?• How to use the tables?
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Database maintenance cont.
• Documentation:– What is the purpose of this table?– What data is stored?– What are expected value ranges?– Table owner
• Table changes– Notification:
• “Owner”• Via Sakai-dev?
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Database maintenance cont.
• Conventions– Naming, views, triggers, etc.• What about integration with external
systems?• Web services…
– New column, larger column, new table• No problem
– Datatype change, column removal• Probably problems!
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Database growing
• Problem:A table change affecting many tools– No changes will be done if to much
work to fix trunk• Will leed to new tables…
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Database maintenance cont.
• One way:• Database refactoring
– Improve database without changing the whole system at the same time
– Data up-to-date through triggers, views etc.– Mark the old table as deprecated and phased
out to a certain release.– Let many help each other make code changes
between releases.– www.infoq.com/presentations/ambler-database-
refactoring
• Track changes!• Homogeneous database layers
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Maintenance
• Three lines of support:• 1st line
– Authentication, user information, firewalls, etc.
• 2nd line– Full Sakai usage support
• 3rd line– >Troubleshooting, bug reporting, fixes
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Maintenance management model
• Why?– Maintenance involve several different
parties• Business department, IT department,
economy department, …
– Base organization not suited for such coordination
– A mainteance organization is needed– Compare to project organization
• Persistent
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pm3
• maintenance management model• Swedish model (only?)• Same on all central systems at UmU• Tool for clarifying responsibilities
between business and IT parties• Consists of four central
components:
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Pm3 component 1
• Well defined maintenance assignments– Maintenance plan
• What to-do during the year with the system• Renewed yearly• All parties must agree upon it
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pm3 component 2
• Efficient maintenance object– Declare what is being maintained and
where the boundaries are.– May contain several IT solutions and
business solutions– Business perspective (not IT)
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Pm3 component 3
• Described, understood and accepted maintenance processes.– Process for problem based support – Process for change management – Process for management by objectives – Process for operational problem
management
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pm3 component 4
• Businesslike maintenance organizations– Project like-form:
Based on persons from the ordinary organization
– Permanent– One-to-one mapping to maintenance
object.
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Maintenance organization
Business IT Is the core of…
Budget level
Solution owner
Solution owner
Steering committee
Decision-making level
Solution manager
Solution manager
Maintenance management group
Operational level
Object specialists
Developer, IT operator, etc
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Maintenance workflow
Reference groups
steeringcommittee
Maintenancemanagementgroup
Developedcomponents
Adjustedcomponents
Fixes
Development proposals
Suggestions for fixes and new functionality
Projects
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Usage
• Spring 2009 (now)– 115 active course sites– 381 project sites
• Autumn 2009– 800+ active course sites
• Spring 2010– 1000+ active course sites
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Usage cont.
• No central regulations at UmU about CLE systems yet.– Up to each and everyone
• The departments are porting or planning to do so– Costs
• Automation of adminstration• Maintenance
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Usage cont.
• Pleasant but not so common problem:– Does too many wants to use it?!
• Advertising:– Not planned yet.– Killer apps does not need advertising...– Probably late 2009
• Depends on the usage progress
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Questions!