[Fiware-chapter-leaders] [Fiware-chapter-architects] URGENT: FIWARE coordination confcall - response to technical assessment by HLRS on FIWARE GEris in the Catalogue

[Alex Glikson]

Dear Juanjo, all,

Towards the discussion this afternoon.. 
I would agree that quality is extremely important, given the expected wide 
usage during Phase 3. 
Speaking specifically of DCRM and Object Storage GEs, IBM would be 
interested to use a contractor for QA-related activities (we are doing it 
in several internal projects, and it works very well). Being a fundamental 
part of all the FIWARE Lab deployments, production-ready quality of the 
Cloud infrastructure is really crucial. In fact, this has been briefly 
discussed during the proposal writing phase, but never materialized till 
now (besides a place-holder in the proposal/DOW mentioning such an 
option).
It seems also reasonable to diverge some of the funding to professional 
project-wide QA activities (FIWARE-wide CI infrastructure could be an 
example of such activities - not just validation of documentation).

Regards,
Alex

====================================================================================
Alex Glikson
Manager, Cloud Infrastructure Solutions, IBM Haifa Research Lab
Email: glikson at il.ibm.com | Phone: +972-4-8281085 | Mobile: 
+972-54-6466667 | Fax: +972-4-8296112





From:   Juanjo Hierro <juanjose.hierro at telefonica.com>
To:     <fiware-chapter-leaders at lists.fi-ware.org>, 
<fiware-chapter-architects at lists.fi-ware.org>
Cc:     fiware-wg-leaders at lists.fi-ware.org
Date:   29/09/2014 03:03 AM
Subject:        [Fiware-chapter-architects] URGENT: FIWARE coordination 
confcall - response to technical assessment by HLRS on FIWARE GEris in the 
Catalogue
Sent by:        fiware-chapter-architects-bounces at lists.fi-ware.org



Hi all,

  Starting today and as agreed during our Munich meeting, we will have a 
weekly coordination confcall involving FIWARE Chapter/WG leaders on 
Mondays from 14:30 until 16:00.

  In today's confcall, there is a hot topic to address that has to do with 
the response to a new technical assessment report produced by HLRS by 
request of the EC.   Please find it attached to this mail.

  As you will see, the assessment cannot be more negative, mostly 
considering the crucial point at which we are.   Almost no FIWARE GEri has 
passed the tests for the local installation of the software using 
available installation and admin guides.

  Please try to arrive with an analysis of the status of GEris in your 
chapter. 

  Besides the implementation of immediate remediate action that can only 
be taken by each owner of FIWARE GEris, we would like to propose an 
overall 3% of cut on the budget/funding of partners to fund the 
subcontracting for aprox. 600 K? of some organization(s) that can handle 
the testing of manuals and tutorials linked to each GEri.   Based on the 
experience from the previous phase (FI-WARE project) and the recent 
assessment nows look evident that we cannot continue like this, trusting 
on the internal QA procedures of partners as we had done in the past. 

  Due to the inherent technical nature of the matter, FIWARE Architecture 
Chapter Leaders are also requested to join.

  Other topics will be covered if there is time during the allocated slot, 
from 14:30 to 16:00.

  Best regards,

-- Juanjo


-------- Original Message -------- 
Subject: 
FIWARE: Rubio report - IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED
Date: 
Sat, 27 Sep 2014 08:42:16 +0000
From: 
<Arian.ZWEGERS at ec.europa.eu>
To: 
<juanjose.hierro at telefonica.com>, <stefano.depanfilis at eng.it>
CC: 
<nuria.delama at atos.net>, <Jesus.Villasante at ec.europa.eu>, 
<Peter.Fatelnig at ec.europa.eu>, <Ragnar.Bergstrom at ec.europa.eu>, 
<Maria-Concepcion.ANTON-GARCIA at ec.europa.eu>


(with apologies for the long email. Please read all)
 
 
Dear Juanjo, Stefano,
 
We have received the FI-WARE Generic Enabler Assessment report by Daniel 
Rubio (attached). The report presents an assessment of the ease of getting 
started, i.e. downloading and installing the GEs or using FI-Lab, rather 
than an assessment of the actual functionality of the GEs. In other words, 
it assesses the FI-WARE GE implementations from a third party point of 
view; any phase 3 subgrantee could and would have similar experiences.
 
Just like the previous report by Lutz Schubert one year ago and the 
Engineering report from April 2014, the Rubio report highlights several 
issues that question the readiness of FI-WARE GEis for take-up in the 
FI-PPP phase 3. A summary of the main Rubio findings is as follows:
 
·         Documentation
o   The documentation is often not updated or refers to GEi versions that 
are no longer available. 
o   The documentation fails, in most cases, in explaining how to install 
the dependencies and libraries or other software the GEi needs to work 
correctly. 
o   There are big differences in documentation. Installation guides follow 
different writing styles and enter into different levels of detail.
·         Installation
o   In many cases the download section or the download links in the 
installation documentation are broken so the software cannot be 
downloaded. In other cases, no stable version is offered and there is only 
the possibility to download a source code snapshot from the development 
repository.
o   No common installation approach is given. Some GEis come with a clean 
automatic installation procedure while others have a tedious long manual 
installation which is almost impossible to revert and that might break 
other software on the system.
o   Of those GEis that use scripts for installation, the scripts are often 
only working on very specific system configurations and are not able to 
automatically install the dependencies.
o   Many of the GEis require a very specific system to work, and are not 
able to install or run if it is slightly changed. Sometimes the required 
system is old and no longer supported with security updates.
·         FI-Lab
o   Documentation is poor and needs an introduction presenting the aim and 
purpose of the platform, so that newcomers can clearly understand for what 
purpose they can use FI-Lab and what they can expect. 
o   Several open source example applications must be included. They must 
be very well documented and the documentation needs to explain how to make 
these applications. Newcomers should be able to use these applications and 
compile them. These applications should be coded and documented by other 
people than the developers of the Generic Enablers.
o   A FI-Lab forum must be created with a wide community of users where 
everybody developing with FI-Lab can join and resolve problems, share 
experiences, improve applications, etc. People would be more inclined to 
use the forum than (for instance) the helpdesk if a large, responsive and 
knowledgeable community is active.
o   For each section, it should be possible for newcomers to understand 
their aim and capabilities via a ?quick start guide? or tutorial followed 
by a set of references for the user to continue learning how to use the 
platform. Most of the information is not organized and is difficult to 
find.
o   There is a need for more tutorials that build on each other to teach 
the users to build complex applications from scratch.
o   The documentation (and videos) should be maintained accordingly with 
the platform updates. Changes in the functionality or the user interface 
of the platform should be reflected in the documentation.
 
Third parties are looking at FIWARE right now. They will encounter the 
same issues as Daniel Rubio. They will leave and never come back.
 
Urgent action is necessary now.
 
Therefore, the following is necessary:
 
Documentation: hire external professional documentation writers for making 
user-friendly installation (and user) guides. Such professionals must be 
present in the consortium's partners, but the people involved in the 
project will not have the authority to include them, certainly not on 
short notice. Therefore, subcontracting is the only option. 
Documentation writers must be closely working with the developers to 
guarantee that the latest GEi versions are used. 
For easy uptake the documentation needs to be complete and fully 
comprehensive; it should be clear, give a uniform level of detail within 
the same GEi and across all GEis, not skipping installation steps and 
making sure that it is updated accordingly to the software versions 
available for download. 
Installation: hire external professional testers for testing the 
dependencies, libraries or other software the GEis need to work. They 
should work with the developers (who implicitly know dependencies), 
test/develop installation scripts, and support the documentation writers 
Installations must be automated to a maximum degree, using the Operating 
System repositories for resolving dependencies, when possible, or giving 
extensions to repositories including in them all the necessary extra 
dependencies as this would lead to clean, fast and easy installations. The 
installation mechanisms, as well as the documentation, should be tested in 
clean environments to be able to correctly determine if the installation 
packages or scripts work correctly and resolve the installation of 
dependencies. 
The GEis must be able to be integrated into existing frameworks, making 
them integrate as smoothly as possible and they must be configurable for a 
wide range of existing system setups. Users should not be forced to use a 
specific software platform, in particular when that platform is already 
obsolete and unsupported. 
Fix the download section or the broken download links in the installation 
documentation. 
Offer a stable version for download, not a source code snapshot from the 
development repository. 
Create a FIWARE forum with a community of users of FIWARE where everybody 
developing and using FIWARE technologies can join and resolve problems, 
share GEis installation and configuration experiences, etc. The forum 
would also allow FI-WARE developers to identify where users have problems 
and take actions to solve them. This is part of FI-Core activities. 
FI-Lab 
The same as for documentation above applies to FI-Lab, and is especially 
relevant related to ?quick start guides?, tutorials, training guidance. 
The documentation (and videos) should be maintained accordingly with the 
platform updates. Changes in the functionality or the user interface of 
the platform should be reflected in the documentation. 
Create several open source example applications. People will not start 
from scratch but will modify an example. These examples must be very well 
documented and the documentation needs to explain how to make these 
applications. Newcomers should be able to use these applications and 
compile them. 
A FI-Lab forum must be created with a wide community of users where 
everybody developing with FI-Lab can join and resolve problems, share 
experiences, improve applications, etc. 
Clean the Catalogue from GEis that require unsupported Operating Systems 
or port these GEis to newer OS versions. 
 
 
Maximum priority to solve the above problems must be given now, whatever 
resources are needed. In no other time in the life of the project have we 
been confronted with a higher need for immediate action. The credibility 
of FIWARE and the success of the whole FI-PPP phase 3 are at risk. Today 
more than 150 proposals are being submitted to the accelerators; they 
should not face the problems stated in the Rubio report.
 
These issues must be solved with maximum urgency.
 
We like to discuss this with you on Tuesday Sept 30, in the morning. 
Please let me know your availability. If necessary, please clear your 
agenda.
 
Best regards,
Arian




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