1. Real World Use of Agile Software Development Methods
C. Loomis (CNRS/LAL)
Lancement du réseau LoOPS (LAL)
31 mai 2012

2. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Contents
Biography
StratusLab Project
Adoption of Agile
Adaptations to Reality
Results & Statistics
Towards DevOps
Conclusions
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

3. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Biography
Trained as physicist
Worked at Fermilab (Chicago) and CERN (Geneva)
Research engineer at LAL since 2001
European DataGrid (EDG), integration team leader
EGEE-I, -II, -III, user community activity manager
StratusLab, project coordinator
Quattor Toolkit
Developer of the pan language compiler
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

4. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
StratusLab Project
Goal
Create comprehensive, open-source, IaaS cloud distribution
Demonstrate stability and production quality by supporting grid services
Information
1 June 2010—31 May 2012 (2 years)
6 partners from 5 countries
Budget : 3.3 M€ (2.3 M€ EC)
Contacts
Site web:
Support:
CNRS (FR)
UCM (ES)
GRNET (GR)
SIXSQ (CH)
TID (ES)
TCD (IE)
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

5. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Agile Methodologies
Development process that is adaptable, rapid, and maintains quality.
Many “theologies” and techniques: SCRUM, Kanban, XP, TDD, …
Desire to manage human interactions as well as raw development
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

6. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
SCRUM
Product owner: sets development priorities
Sprint manager: ensures system is working correctly
Team members: develop software/documentation
Planning
Meeting
Demo Meeting
Daily
Standup
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

7. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Tools
Git: Source code management
JIRA: Issue tracking
Maven: Uniform build framework
Nexus: Build artifact repository
Hudson: Continuous build & integration
Hudson/SlipStream: Systems testing
SlipStream/Claudia: Service deployment
Communication: Telephone, Skype, EVO
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

8. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Results & Statistics
11 releases over 2 years (latest v2.0)
Both academic and commercial deployments
Variety of scientific domains using StratusLab
Sprint Length: ~3 weeks
No. Sprints: 26
Implemented Stories: 597
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

9. Adaptations to Reality
Academic project
No real central control of personnel
Agile requires commitment from all participants
Developers not full-time on project
Some constraints from EC project contract
Requires high level of automation
Need complete, integrated tool chain
Must have automated unit and system tests
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

10. Adaptations to Reality
Developers distributed in 5 countries
Teleconferencing for standup meetings
Videoconferencing (EVO) for demo meetings
JIRA provides distributed SCRUM board
Hallway conversations via Skype
Face-to-Face meetings essential
Every 4-6 months to focus on integration tasks
Improves human interactions and cooperation
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

11. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Problem Areas
Release management
Incomplete integration of release procedures into sprint procedures
Certification included in latter part of project, but flow from developers to administrators not streamlined
Tool support for what are essentially workflows is very poor and requires manual interventions
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

12. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Problem Areas
Full system testing
Bottleneck on system testing platform
Only single deployment validated
Difficult to trace failures to single change
Certification not integrated into automated path
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

13. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
DevOps
Integrate development and operations teams
Ensure that operational concerns are met
Release new features and fixes rapidly
Fully automated tool chain
Dashboard to monitor all aspects of process
Deployment must be integrated into process
Support for testing and deployment workflows
Validate agile methods with DevOps
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

14. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Conclusions (I)
Agile software development works:
Series of solid releases with increasing functionality, deployed in both academic and commercial environments
Hard-pressed to find similar productivity in other EC and non-EC project.
Techniques must be tuned to the constraints of the project or development community
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)

15. Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)
Conclusions (II)
Towards DevOps:
Must bring system administrators into development loop to ensure that their requirements are met
Dashboard and fully automated development and deployment tool chain needed
Looking forward to working on DevOps at LAL and potentially in a new EC project
31 May 2012
Agile Methologies (C. Loomis)