COmanage-Dev Call 27-Mar-09

*Attending*

Heather Flanagan, Stanford (chair)
RL Bob Morgan, U. Washington
Chris Hyzer, U. Penn
Chris Hubing, Penn State
IJ Kim, Internet2
George Brett, Internet2
Digant Kasundra, Stanford
Steven Carmody, Brown
Ken Klingenstein, Internet2
Michael Gettes, MIT
Renee Frost, Internet2
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Emily Eisbruch, Internet2 (scribe)

*New Action Items**

[AI] (Steven) will coordinate interaction between Nate and Digant.
[AI] (Everyone) check out the roadmap, which has been recently revised.https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/COmanage/COmanage+Product+Roadmap
[AI] (Heather) will talk with Gary Schwartz (RPI/Bedework) at the I2 SMM. (Steven or Michael) will provide an introduction.

*Carry Over Action Items*

[AI] (Ken) will draft an email to interested parties who could be helpful in COmanage testing.
[AI] (Steven and Jim) will flesh out the existing developer domestication guidelines in the wiki.
[AI] (Digant) will create a simple html mockup of the Beau Jest interface and have it available at the Spring I2MM.
[AI] (Ken) will reach out to potential international developers to participate in early alpha testing
[AI] (Ken) will ask his contact at the Norwegian Federation about Foodle.
[AI] (Bob) will provide to the list background on user stories.
[AI] (Ken) will talk with Lois about Fluid involvement in improving the COmanage GUI, scheduling it for later in the year.
[AI] (Chris) will contact Atlassian and try to obtain a timetable for Jira domestication. (Ken) will provide some wording for this communication with Atlassian.
[AI] (Bob) will send links to the group on the invitation problem.
[AI] (Ken) will send a note to his contact at OOI to explore their level interest (after the COmanage alpha is ready).
[AI] (Ken) will ping Frank Siebenlist from Argonne National Laboratory, who is interested in COmanage.
[AI] (Digant) will create COmanage video #2, when the improved Collabmin GUI is available.

Discussion

*Goals for Alpha Version*

Heather conferred with many working group members over the past week. The consensus was that the immediate goals for the COmanage project are to create:

  • A virtual machine with a COmanage instance setup on it with as much as possible preconfigured for people to download it and do testing.
  • Documentation so more technical folks can understand more about how COmanage is built and create build their own instance.
  • A test version of COmanage publicly available (like TestShib).

*Upgrades*

A concern was expressed that people who experiment with this Alpha COmanage version might become enthusiastic and enter real production data; however, they won't find it easy to upgrade and run the real risk of losing this data.

The best solution is to include a disclaimer that any data entered into this early alpha version will be expunged when they upgrade to a later production version.

Michael:  A possible solution is for those who want to do testing but preserve data -- if they have the knowledge -- is to set up a database server and point the applications at the database server. Then when they get an upgrade, they point the applications at the database.
Steven:  That's a good use of wikis, maybe someone will add the cookbook on how to do that.

It was agreed to start with including a disclaimer about this being a test version and the fact that data will be lost with the next upgrade.

*Goals for Post Alpha*

A goal after the upcoming Alpha release is to produce a version capable of attaching to infrastructure not within COmanage.
Digant: We would still want a collabmin interface that allows one to easily do that.

After Alpha is where we will want to have an installer that asks more questions.

Ken: At the IETF meeting there were discussions with the Cisco people. They own Jabber, WebEx, and other tools. They are interested in domesticating these apps for COmanage, and learning what that would entail.

Steven: Gary Schwartz from RPI will attend Internet2 Spring Member Meeting to talk about Bedework.

[AI] (Heather) will talk with Gary Schwartz at Internet2 SMM. (Steven or Michael) will provide an introduction.

*Support*

George: Will there be a point person for tough questions? Or will questions go to users list?

Heather: Right now we are looking at the latter (support via the users list).

George: Within documentation, it would be good to point people to resources or people to address specific technical issues.

*Network Interface Issues*

There was discussion about whether to preconfigure the COmanage Alpha VM for Shib.
It was suggested to try to have five or fewer questions that would enable someone to get the Alpha version running inside a real federation.
The suggestion was also made to have no network interface for now and have zero questions. This approach is for the Alpha to have no network interface.

No Confluence tab will be provided a tab in the Alpha version.

Many questions remain to be resolved after the Alpha release regarding how far we want to go to be the integrator versus just providing an interface that permits management of the applications. How far should the collabmin interface go?
It was agreed these are open questions and we will work them out over time. For the Alpha version, simpler is better.

Digant will consult with Nate on Shib matters.

[AI] (Steven) will coordinate interaction between Nate and Digant.

[AI] (Everyone) check out the roadmap, which has been recently revised.https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/COmanage/COmanage+Product+Roadmap

Next Call:  Friday, 3-Apr-09 at 2:00pm ET.

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