Closure Report

Project Summary

Background

IS Applications currently have a set of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) application servers. These are lightweight, shared hosting platforms used for hosting smaller applications. The application server is using CentOS Linux 6 that has already end "Production 2" support and will reach end of life (EOL) in November 2020

There is also WIMP (Windows, IIS, MS SQL, PHP) servers that host the Course Timetable Browser application Upgrade. However no work was required for WIMP as part of this project

Scope

Build new applications servers to support LAMP/WIMP applications.  The project will build the new servers with CentOS Linux 7 to provide newer software versions to ensure ongoing support and security updates.

The MySQL databases are not hosted on the application servers so will not be changed as part of this project. 

Minimally one application (Path) will be migrated as a test application within this project to validate the server build. Following this other business-driven projects would migrate applications over the course of the following project years. However, based on initial estimates migration of all the applications were possible during the course of this project.  Migration options were  reviewed during project delivery. In the event that all  project applications were migrated then decommissioning of the old servers will follow.

Course Timetable Browser is the only application running on the WIMP server. This being migrated to a new server by the TTU015 project. However WIMP will remain as part of the project until this has been completed. (This WIMP application was completed and project closed on 9-Mar-2018)

Only 1 application will be migrated by this project.

Objectives and Deliverables

The project objectives and deliverables include:

Objectives O4 and O5 were taken out at then Brief Stage and were no longer included in INF127.  However these Objectives were re-instated into the project after Path was successfully migrated in April as the project had budget left at that point. Only during the project could we see if they could all be achieved. Budget did require updated several times during the project when some applications took longer than others and did need extended into 2018/19 to ensure all applications were completed, so that the server could be decommissioned.

HR Reward Calculator was also added, as this was not on the original list of the Lamp applications, but fell into one of the early categories so was included with them

Benefits

LAMP applications will benefit from being hosted on

• Supported servers
• Continued security updates

Success Criteria

Project team realised early on that it may be possible to achieve migrating  all the applications off LAMP and then made every effort to achieve that successful outcome. This was achieved as well as decommissioning the servers

That at least one application was migrated successfully on the new LAMP Platform.

• The Path application was selected and was completed successfully during April 18

Following that, the project continued through the LAMP list in an aim to complete migrating all applications on Lamp

• All 11 applications have been covered
• LAMP servers were then able to be decommissioned

With the increase in the scope being covered, the budget was increased a number of times and 119 days was the last approved budget

Staff Usage Estimate: 60 days (proposal 50 days) for 1 application. This was then increased to  - 119 for 11 applications and to decommission the Lamp Server in Dev, Test and Live.

Staff Usage Actual: 119 days

Staff Usage Variance: 198%

Other Resource Estimate:  not applicable

Other Resource Actual: not applicable

Other Resource Variance: not applicable

Outcome

Explanation for variance

• After the first application Path was completed, the decision was made to attempt to migrate all the applications off the old Lamp Sever
  • This ended up taking longer than expected, but due to the server end of life, the budget was provided to continue to enable the completion of all this work
• The set of 6 applications on web-proxy were all deployed to live on 3rd July, however the PG Degree Finder application had not been fully tested and all 6 applications had to be rolled back. Once the PG Degree Finder was fixed and fully tested for the 6 applications were successfully deployed to live on 10-July with no further issues
• TALKS and TALKS reminder application was deployed on 14-Aug with no issues.
  • The existing out of scope issue request for TALKS and TALKS reminder application was raised during Acceptance Testing for the business sponsor is  I180814-1171. However this issue with TALKS that had not been reported to Apps Supp caused issue in live and part of talks was suppressed, but the changes for INF127 were still ok.
  • The call relating to this problem is Unidesk call I180817-0793 relating to the Talks search spidering issue.
• During testing DRPS had an issue related to archive data older than 2010, however once the older archived DRPS work was resolved, testing of INF127 was completed with no issues
• WebPA has had to be rescheduled a number of times due to resourcing issues as a number of people were essential in the business, dev test, apps supp and software development to ensure it can be processed smoothly. In addition it had to be scheduled after the September change freeze to the first week in October at the start if the working day (8.15)
• Completing 11 applications resulted in doubling the original Brief budget of 60 days, however 11 applications were completed rather than 1 plus shutting down the old Lamp Servers before closing the project. A unidesk call I181008-1095 has been raised in order to decommissioning the old Lamp servers a month after closure.
• Delays also happened due to
  • ensuring that the correct people were available and then
  • having to plan after the change freeze

Key Learning Points

• The PM to ensure key members of project team are available for each go live (the issue with PG Degree Finder could have been avoided if it had been planned 1 day later when the software developer was back from leave)

• TALKS requested a refresh of the test db from live during the testing of the TALKS application, however this was out of scope for this project. But in hindsight this may have highlighted the issues of funnelback on test, prior to go live.

  • Perhaps a lesson learned could be to compare the volume of data (size of db) between test and live, and make a decision as to whether a refresh would be advantageous.

• Using WIKI  to keep track of progress of each application in one place worked well
  • INF127 LAMP Upgrade - Decommissioning / Migration Plan
• It proved useful to track business acceptance testing on the project website
  • INF127 Applications Log Progress
• All project issues were kept in JIRA and proved invaluable to refer to for individual progress
• The project added automated deployment plans using Bamboo, for most of the applications.
  • Making the process of migrating the applications much easier and more robust. 
  • This is also assisting the further development of the applications.
• All the implementations were carried out by automated deployment plans, the effect to the business was reduced and minimal.
  • Alerts and Go Cab were all 'At Risk'
  • Go Cab provided a project template for INF127 which assisted, was very useful and used for all the migrations

Outstanding Issues

The Talks issue already existed in the system and so was out of scope for this project

•   I180814-1171. However this existing issue with TALKS had not been reported to Applications Support. This issue in live resulted in part of talks being suppressed.
• The call relating to this problem is Unidesk call I180817-0793 and that Talks is not getting updated in the University Web Search at the moment because of the problem.

However the changes for INF127 worked correctly on the new platform and so the above points did not stop INF127 proceeding