1. Technical experiences of adopting Sakai at Umeå University Daniel Lind, Umeå University Daniel.Lind@umdac.umu.se 2nd European Sakai Conference Stockholm, 2009-05-06

2. Agenda Background Project Surrounding infrastructure Archiving and porting Problems encountered Improvements Maintenance –Database –Management model 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University2

3. Umeå University Founded in 1965 4 faculties 50 departments 29000 students 4000 employees www.umu.se 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University3

4. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University4 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

5. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University5

6. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University6 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

7. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University7 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

8. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University8 IT infrastructure at UmU LDAP –Employee and student info –Course info –Organisation info CAS –SSO Shibboleth / SimpleSAMLphp –SAML for federated SSO –Other Swedish Universities

9. IT infrastructure cont. uPortal –Student portal –Entry to course sites –Share data storage with MyWorkspace InfoGlue –CMS –Plain HTML pages –Help pages… 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University9

10. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University10 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)

11. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University11 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

12. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University12 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?

13. 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! 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University13

14. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University14

15. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University15 Tuning Tuning is necessary already from the start: –MySQL –Tomcat –Sakai –JVM Real life examples Missing in the installation guide?

16. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University16 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!

17. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University17

18. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University18 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

19. 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? 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University19

20. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University20

21. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University21 Improvements Documentation –Database doc –Usage doc /Help Code –Single Sing-On support –Technical overall Sakai system doc ”Sakai for dummies” Videos are great!

22. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University22

23. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University23 Database maintenance

24. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University24 Database maintenance cont. 304 tables 2197 columns If a change is necessary – what is affected? How to change? How to use the tables?

25. 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? 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University25

26. 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! 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University26

27. 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… 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University27

28. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University28

29. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University29 Maintenance Three lines of support: 1 st line –Authentication, user information, firewalls, etc. 2 nd line –Full Sakai usage support 3 rd line –>Troubleshooting, bug reporting, fixes

30. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University30 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

31. 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: 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University31

32. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University32

33. 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) 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University33

34. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University34

35. pm3 component 4 Businesslike maintenance organizations –Project like-form: Based on persons from the ordinary organization –Permanent –One-to-one mapping to maintenance object. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University35

36. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University36 Maintenance organization BusinessITIs the core of… Budget level Solution owner Steering committee Decision- making level Solution manager Maintenance management group Operationa l level Object specialists Developer, IT operator, etc

37. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University37 Maintenance workflow Reference groups steering committee Maintenance management group Developed components Adjusted components Fixes Development proposals Suggestions for fixes and new functionality Projects

38. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University38 Usage Spring 2009 (now) –115 active course sites –381 project sites Autumn 2009 –800+ active course sites Spring 2010 –1000+ active course sites

39. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University39

40. 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 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University40

41. 2015-09-02Daniel Lind, Umeå University41 Questions!