Osor Launch, presentation at Open Source World Conference 2008 (Málaga, October 2008)

1. OSOR: Services and Platform
Presented by:
Marco Battistoni & Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona
(Unisys, GSyC/LibreSoft-URJC)
marco.battistoni@be.unisys.com, jgb@gsyc.es
Malaga, October 20th 2008
OSOR Session at OSWC 2008
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
October 20th 2008
Directorate-General for Informatics

2. Copyright 2007, 2008 OSOR team
Some rights reserved. This presentation is distributed under the
“Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0” license, by Creative Commons, available at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
The original version of this presentation is available at http://osor.eu
Disclamer:
The views expressed in this document are purely those of the writer and
may not, in any circumstances, be interpreted as stating an official
position of the European Commission.
The European Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the
information included in this presentation, nor does it accept any
responsibility for any use thereof.
Reference herein to any specific products, specifications, process, or
service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does
not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation,
or favoring by the European Commission.
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3. What is OSOR.eu?
Open Source Observatory and Repository
Set up as an IDABC initiative (OSO)
European platform for the exchange of:
libre (free, open source) software
Good practices in Open Source
Information and News
Aimed at public administrations
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4. OSOR.eu
Objectives: Cooperation, sharing, pooling of resources,
promotion of synergies
Strategy: Connect initiatives at all levels, share
experiences and software, animate a lively OSOR
community
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5. OSOR Identity
A design that represents a concept
Easily recognizable
That has the following principles:
Community
Cooperation
Sharing
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6. The OSOR Bees
Bees represent:
Community
Sharing
Cooperation
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7. Provide a design for non technical users
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8. Provide a design for non technical users
Website or Information
Platform
Website with good practice
in the use of libre
software by public
administrations where
you can find:
News
Case studies
Events
Newsletters
other...
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9. How can I Participate in OSOR?
There are 2 ways of Participating in OSOR
Your project is hosted directly in OSOR
Your project can be hosted in a Federated
Repository.
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10. Provide a design for non technical users
Website or Information
Platform
Website with good practice
in the use of libre
software by public
administrations where
you can find:
News
Case studies
Events
Newsletters
other...
10

11. Provide a design for non technical users
Forge/Collaborative
environment: support
collaborative
development, encourage
and facilitate reuse (libre
software for public
administrations)
Repository of
software
Development
platform
Facilities for
collaboration
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12. Hosted in OSOR
Your project is physically hosted in OSOR
You need to be a registered user
You need to be compliant with the “10
Principles”
You need to Fill out the Project Form
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13. The 10 Principles
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14. In brief
The project must be an Open Source project
The platform is reserved for software and projects
that are publicly financed
Software or documentation that will be uploaded
on the OSOR.eu must be made available for free and
under a recognised Open Source licence
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15. Project Registration Form
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16. Project Approval
The OSOR Team will evaluate based on the 10
Principles your Project
Project approved!!
Welcome to OSOR!!
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17. The other way: Federation
At National level, there are already similar initiative
OSOR is not in competition with the National
Repositories
We want to Federate the National repositories to
provide European visibility to the National Project
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18. The other way: Federation
OSOR
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19. How does it work?
The only requirement is that the repository has to
be a Forge
The Forge has a plug-in/utility that allows to search
in other Forges
To provide visibility to the national project, we do
not need the project physically in OSOR.
Just connect with OSOR, federate with OSOR
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20. Who is already connected?
Adullact with 401 projects
Forxa de Mancomun with 101 projects
Morfeo-Forge with 53 projects
La forja de Guadalinex with 31 projects
CNIPA with 18 projects
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21. EUPL
EUPL is a Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS)
licence
The EUPL is a “legal tool” that is already in used by the
European Commission
The EUPL has considered the specificity and diversity of
Member States Law
The EUPL ensures downstream compatibility issues with
the most relevant other licences
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22. How does it work?
OSOR Website: ~ 20.000 Unique Visitors since July.
OSOR Forge: ~ 19.000 Unique Visitors since May.
OSOR Forge: 37 Projects physically hosted
OSOR Forge: 180 Users Registered
OSOR projects from federated forges: 1000
Projects that can be searched via OSOR
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23. Technical issues: main characteristics
Two subsystems / three services:
Information platform: migration and
evolution of OSO
Software development forge (including
catalog):
 Repository: uploading/downloading
software, descriptions, and related items.
 CDE: collaboration in libre software
development
High level requirements:
High availability platform
Libre software for all components
COTS components with minor modifications
Specific requirements for each main service
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24. Information platform
Create/update/publish several types of
content:
News, case studies, reports
Events
IDABC OSS activities
Newsletters
other...
Tools to manage relationship with users
Surveys
Comments
RSS channels and other syndication means
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25. Repository
Repository as a live catalog of libre
software products
Software developed in the OSOR CDE or
somewhere else
Unique taxonomy (coordinated with other
forges)
“OSOR project/product template” for
harmonizing information
Specific requirements: list of parameters of
performance and user experience
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26. CDE: Collaborative Development Environment
Forge-like platform
Augmented with some other collaboration
means
Specific facilities for federation
Special consideration to the needs of public
administrations
Several roles for different kinds of users:
Visitors: anonymous users, read-only access
Registered users: can be granted acces to
project resources for helping in
development tasks.
Project administrators: can access and
grant permission to all resources (project
management).
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27. Hardware platform (1)
Physical configuration
Off-the-self hardware.
Full redundancy
 All nodes providing services are
duplicated.
 High availability.
Storage nodes, service nodes
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28. Hardware platform (2)
Logical configuration
Architecture based in virtualization
techniques
Services separated in virtual machines
 Improved security.
 Simplified administration.
 Recovery of faulted virtual nodes,
migration between physical
computers.
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29. Hardware platform (3)
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30. HW/SW configuration: disk servers
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31. HW/SW configuration: service nodes (1)
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32. HW/SW configuration: service nodes (2)
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33. Hardware characteristics
Standard technologies:
Intel x86-64 compatible, 2 or more cores, 2 GHz or
better.
RAM: 2 to 8 GB, depending on node.
Storage: Minimum RAID-1, with compatible
controllers.
Redundant power supply.
Gigabit Ethernet network.
Nodes for processing (virtual machine hosters):
4-cores CPU 8 GB RAM
Nodes for storage (disk servers or backup server):
Storage space: 4 TB capacity, 2 TB available with
RAID-1.
Upgradeable to 8 TB total / 4 TB available.
Gigabit network.
GE interfaces, Managed GE switches.
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34. Housing and networking facilities
Physical requirements
Data-centre with physical security requirements
against intrusion, natural disasters, etc.
Full rack hosting (42U).
Electrical availability: two separate electrical
circuits.
Security
Firewalling provided by housing service.
Two redundant, high availability, managed
firewalls.
Performance / Traffic
Connection to two major carriers well connected
in Europe
Sustained rate 10 Mbps, with peak rates.
Availability: >99.9 %
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35. System operation
24x7 System Operation Service
Zabbix server monitoring
Advanced monitoring
Alerting and monitoring features
Alerts via SMS and email
Two servers:
 In the data center
 In URJC labs
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36. Software architecture
Operating system: Debian GNU/Linux
(stable + security updates + custom
improvements)
All software packages are libre software
Most software packages are standard
Debian packages
Most prominent specific software:
Plone3 (information services)
GForge (basic repository and CDE)
Mailman (mailing lists)
Subversion (source code management)
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37. Software products: Plone3
Stable and mature (available for more than 5
years)
Support available from several sources
Lively, active community
In good company (in use by many organizations)
Easy content edition, user friendly
Available in over 35 languages (some multilingual
support)
Accessibility compliant (W3C's WAI-AA
standards)
Workflows: several available
Security: Fine-grained role-based security model
Experience in public sector (ComunesPlone)
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38. Software products: GForge 4.x
Well known, mature CDE (forge “by
default”)
Support standard development tools,
integrated into one web site:
SCM repository.
Bug tracking system.
Forums.
Mailing lists.
Task management.
Release management.
“Expected” platform for many libre
software developers
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39. Current status
Services being provided since May 2008 to
testing partners
Accepting libre software projects:
Promoted by a public administration
Composed completely of libre software
(OSI or FSF definitions)
Either for the repository or for full
development
Active search for interested projects and
possible synergies
Working with partners to improve service
and coordination
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40. The future (next months)
Promotion and dissemination
Hosting of more and more projects
Full operation, monitoring, feedback
tracking
Identification of synergies and
opportunities for collaboration across Europe
Improvement of facilities and services for
users
Support of development and user
communities (eg., GIS for public
administrations)
Improvement of federation facilities
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41. Check the real thing
OSOR (including migrated OSO):
http://osor.eu
Forge (admitting projects):
http://forge.osor.eu
OSOR software, presentations, etc:
OSOR project at http://forge.osor.eu
Feedback is welcome!
Libre software projects promoted by public
administrations are welcome!
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42. Come to the OSOR!
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