Report for September 2019

Project Info

Project Manager's Commentary

INF135

CF10 Updates

Milestones

These milestones will be re-planned once patches are available and we have confidence in re-planned dates

RAG Status AMBER

Report by Sue Woodger for September 2019

Achievements in last period

• All Linux applications have been worked on and some brought to peer testing where showstopper issues found that affect all applications– see issues

Issues

• Two showstoppers have been identified in peer testing and have been raised as bugs with Adobe. These issues will also affect INF152 if not resolved.

  1. ORM issue with Oracle sequences not existing – only occurs when saving objects using ORM. All our applications use ORM meaning none are working.  The ORM features works fine in CF10 but fails in CF2018 so this is a bug in CF2018. Adobe are looking into the issue and will supply us with a patch but have not given us any timelines for its receipt
  2. Too many open files – The application is creating temporary files which are not disappearing so they are filling up the VM and data services is not connecting. We now believe that this is what caused AT to previously crash. Peter Jackson has written scripts to track what is happening and will raise a call with Adobe
• Windows build still having issues. Mark Dobbing has stripped it back and is rebuilding
• These issues mean that we have missed the Dev completion milestone of 30 August and the Test milestone of 23 September. The project needs replanned but we do not have any indication of patches from Adobe
• UAT has been put on hold until we have the showstopper issues ironed out and Dev AND Test can be signed off
• The ColdFusion developer has left the project from the end of September as he has been re-allocated to Core Systems. This leaves us without a CF developer. Resourcing manager has confirmed that he will be able to put someone on the project to put the patches in.

Next Steps

• Showstopper issues to be resolved by Adobe
• Project re-planned
• Dev and Test to be signed off

Project is Amber

Description: Project is Amber as milestones have passed and we have no confidence in future dates until Adobe confirm patches are available.

Impact: Project again delayed 

Plan: Re-plan once patches are made available

INF142 (18-19 Project)

Move IS based Oracle databases to VMs and stretched cluster

Milestones

RAG Status: GREEN

Report by David Watters for September 2019

Achievements

• Build of more databases using model finalised
• Testing and documentation of database servers (for Wiki)
• Planning for build and migration phases started

Issues

• Some tasks have taken longer than anticipated

Next steps

• Build of Wiki TEST & LIVE to be finalised
• Testing and documentation of database servers (for Wiki) to be completed
• Plans for build and migration to be finalised

INF143 - MySQL Environment Migration

Milestones

RAG Status

GREEN

Report by Maurice Franceschi for September 2019

Summary - Scope and Objective Change

Original plan and of this project was to move to a virtualised environments and to use MariaDB in preference to MySQL. As a by product of the project, the University would stop using MySQL and avoid a £27,000 licence maintenance renewal. The project scope did not include decommissioning of the MySQL environments.  However, as of 30th July 2019 clarification has been received from Oracle, the licence owner of MySQL, that to avoid the licence renewal liability, all MySQL environments must be decommissioned. This must be accomplished by Mid October 2019. The impact of this objective change increases pressure on the project to deliver the full decommissioning .  

A change request has been raised to increase the overall project priority from Higher to Highest. A further change request needs to be documented to add a number of additional deliverables including;

• The migration of ALL MySQL applications from the current MySQL servers to a Virtual Server running Maria DB
• The migration of ALL other applications running on these servers to ‘somewhere else’
• Decommission of DEV /TEST / LIVE  Linux 6 Platforms used by MySQL / file shares.  
• Closing down the servers by 25/10 (so that Oracle will not charge for licensing

Other contingency mitigation options have been considered but no recommendation  has been put forward.  These include;

• Mariabackup
• SQL Dumps
• File System Snapshots
• LVM

The risk of not achieving the 25th October has been reduced by the team's decision to migrate to Maria DB on the current physical server, with the move to VM as a separate second stage of the project.

Achievements in Last Period

• complete PICCL amending the scope and deliverables of the project - Done
• An analysis of all applications that must be migrated from the environment - Done
• Confirmation of the date of notice of termination of MySQL licence contract - Done
• complete performance testing - not achieved
• complete R&D into puppet  and bamboo for Maria DB - Done
• plan the new approach to stay on physical until migration to Maria DB is over - Done
• migrate in Dev and Test Edweb - achieved
• Commence UAT testing for Edweb - achieved

Issues/Risk

• Absence of technical resources impacting the delivery of the project - mitigated by setting project as Highest priority
• new risk raised - redefining the objective for the project with a target milestone for delivery of just two months risks requiring more budget

Next Steps

• deploy EdWeb to Live
• migrate training and staging environments for Edweb
• comms to CAM, Blogs and MGen applications' users
• upgrade all DEV environments to Maria DB for CAM, Blogs and MGen applications
• upgrade all TEST environments to Maria DB for CAM, Blogs and MGen applications
• upgrade all LIVE environments to Maria DB for CAM, Blogs and MGen applications

INF150 - AP90-014

AppsUtil OS EOL build Centos 7 version

Milestones

RAG Status

GREEN

Report by Anne Mathison for September 2019

Achievements

• Set up project website
• Applications on AppsUtil listed
• Draft Brief in progress

Issues

• No issues

Next Steps

• Compete draft  Brief
• Brief signed off
• Plan project
• Agree milestones
• Identify contact names and descriptions for the applications
• Identify crons running

Green RAG status this month

INF152

ColdFusion Upgrades CF11

Milestones

These milestones have still to be approved by project team for project brief

RAG Status GREEN

Report by Sue Woodger for September 2019

Achievements in last period

• Initial meeting with project sponsor and potential team re issues surrounding CF11 with advice for the brief
• First version of project brief has been created but has still to be shared with project team and approved
• Tech Man have produced a list of applications that are on CF11
• Resourcing confirmed by resource manager as okay for Windows build but waiting on INF143 issues before assigning Linux resource

Issues

• Issues in INF135 and DLIB001 have prevented PM from setting up meetings with team to discuss project brief

Next Steps

• Project brief to be completed

INF154 - AP90-015

Annual Upgrade of Development Tools + frameworks 19/20

Milestones

RAG Status GREEN

Report by Anne Mathison for September 2019

Achievements

• Project set up
• Tools identified to be upgraded
• Brief completed
• Brief reviewed
• Project planned
• PMP set up
• Attended Go Cab re C1909-088 and approved for Oct 9th
• Alert agreed and IS Apps communication has been published
• Budget of 155 days approved - PICCL 2
• Project Brief approved at WIS on 27-Sep-2019 

Issues

• No issues

Next Steps

• Review delivery plan
• PMP will be delivered to Live (9-Oct)
• Puppet master 4 (2 years of) patching work  will be completed in DEV
• Set up regular meetings with project sponsor

Green RAG status this month

INF155: Annual Infrastructure Rationalisation Decommissioning

Milestones

RAG Status GREEN

Report by David Watters for September 2019

Achievements

• Project brief completed and approved
• Introduction to Abacus and new registers
• Work started on updating EOL registers

Issues

• None

Next steps

• Continuation of work on EOL Registers
• Identification of soon-to-be redundant systems & updating of records

Closure Report

Project Closed 2-Aug-2012

Closure Report

Project Closed 8-Aug-2019