API020 Project Brief
Document Sign-off
| Name | Role | Date signed off |
|---|---|---|
| Graeme Wood | Project Sponsor | 1/3 |
| Maurice Franceschi | Project Manager | 27/2 |
| Tim Gray | Programme Manager | |
| Iain Fiddes | Apps Dev | 28/2 |
| Stefan Kaempf | Apps Prod | 28/2 |
| David Fergusson | Research Services |
28/2 |
Background
The present innovation project will deliver the Technical, Functional and Organisational output listed below; These are expanded upon in the “Success Criteria” section further below. The overall objective of the project is to continue the initiative to bring about improvements within Information Service Group (ISG) and thereby to significantly improve the products and services that IS delivers to its customers. The intended improvements include solutions to problems and new opportunities as identified during project API003.
Scope
1 Delivery of a unified git service designed to support the automation processes of ISG Apps and ITI in the first instance but with a strong aspiration to supporting other divisions, if required, in the future. Research Services are keen to provide a hosted GitLab service and provided their service offering can be provided quickly within the initial timescales of this project, and their service levels for this will be acceptable, then we will consider the use of this service in the first instance.
2 The structural design of the git repository to support the above, with sections for applications, infrastructure components and other components. This will require a review of the existing git repositories and the components in them to ensure that they can be merged in at a later date. In conjunction with agreed working practice and authorisation control, these structures must be able to support Puppet Enterprise repositories and other repositories that may be in use within ISG e.g. Subversion, VSS and Git, all of which may contain software, configuration and other items used for example by Bamboo or other tools.
3 Devolved authorisation and process documents to describe how the above is to be used aligned with DevOps best practice, so that we take an organised approach, share ownership and avoid duplication or overlap of components which could otherwise lead to deployment or interpersonal conflict .
4 The present project with align with ENT019 Automation of Infrastructure Deployment projects, which will run concurrently and will deploy Infrastructure components using Puppet Enterprise and this unified Git service.
5 Testing and acceptance of the migration of existing service configuration and software component data into repositories within the unified Git service. This will validate the above and help ISG to begin to formulate and implement further aspects of DevOps culture (Sharing responsibility and objectives, collaborating and organisational alignment).
Changes to Scope will be logged on the Issue Log and also recorded on the Project Scope Change page.
Out of Scope
Installation and development of Puppet which will be delivered through ENT019
Objectives and Deliverables
Technical:
1. Implement and test shared Git environment to enterprise standard including structured logical repository design
2. Implement ecosystem which enables automation using Git including with Puppet Enterprise
Functional:
1. Process and operational documentation enabling positive and collaborative adoption of the new technologies
2. Work with ENT019 to produce draft road-maps of ITI & Applications deliverables using Puppet/Git during 2017
Organisational:
1. Identify and propose changes to ISG working methods which could be expected to improve KPI's
All of the following require to be signed-off by section and team managers during the project delivery window.
| Objective 1 Unified GIT Service by May 2017 (TBC) | Description of the Deliverables needed to achieve the objective | MoSCoW | Key Milestones | ||||
| Deliverable D1.1 | Unified Git service designed to support the automation processes of ISG Apps and ITI | M | |||||
|
Deliverable D1.2 |
Git service that ENT019 can use for Puppet development and continuous integration/deployment | M | |||||
| Deliverable D1.3 |
|
S | |||||
| Objective 2 The structural design of the git repository by July 2017 | |||||||
| Deliverable D2.1 | Sections for existing and new applications, infrastructure & other components. | M | |||||
| Objective 3 Devolved authorisation and process documents by July 2017 | |||||||
|
Deliverable D3.1 |
Recommend how the above should used in consonance with DevOps practice. |
M | |||||
| Objective 4 Acceptance of the migration of existing service configuration and software component data into this repository | |||||||
| Deliverable D4.1 | Execute and sign-off one or more migrations from each existing source into Git | M | |||||
This table can be used through Business and Technical Analysis, Design, Build, and Testing/UAT as a Traceability Matrix to ensure the project brief project objectives and deliverables are followed through.
Benefits
Benefits management and realisation will be available on the ITI Sharepoint space.
The project will help to address several of the key observations and recommendations made by Forrest Consulting and the University of Edinburgh project team during the delivery of project API003. This project will help ISG to transform and improve IS through 1. Strategic alignment of tools, objectives, standards and approach, 2. Improved collaboration including shared ownership, responsibilities, processes and policies, 3. Organisation and automation of the software delivery life-cycle within Application and Infrastructure teams and 4. Consolidation of siloed, localised technology and practice onto high-quality, centralised systems. These improvements will result in the improved efficiency, consistency and quality of ISG's products and services and will also be representative of industry best practise.
Success Criteria
Guidance (please remove)
Driven by the Deliverables and Objectives. Do we have objective measures that we can point to to say the project has been a success (typically we said we would deliver X and we have).
A unified Git service which ITI and Apps use for every possible new deployments and to which they endeavour to migrate existing deployments.
1. Implementations of Production and Test Git environments as follows:
a. Proven by technicians and signed-off by senior managers and team leads
b. Installation and operation fully documented and the latter demonstrated
c. Documentation detailing responsibilities, processes & standards for the above
d. Proof of concept tools and processes for migrating SVN/VSS/Other code to Git
e. All existing ISG Puppet DSL migrated into the unified Git service
f. Solution should offer the capacity for Continous Delivery which itself is out of scope
2. Communication
a. Monthly updates to each team lead from the corresponding project team member
b. At useful times, the project team will present new information to the technical teams
c. Work monthly with the section leads to ensure project outputs are strategically aligned
3. Produce a consolidated & extensible road-map for the utilisation of Puppet/Git during 2017
4. Improve the quantity & quality of cross-team working through recommendations to team leads
5. A two-page report summarising project achievements and recommending next steps
Alignment with Strategic Vision
This project contributes to Service Excellence
Run / Grow / Transform : This is a Transform project.
IS Strategic Vision the main elements of the vision that this projects contibutes to are highlighted in bold.
|
Student Experience |
Commentary |
| Student experience and the unique Edinburgh offer |
To improve service to students by adopting DevOps methods for key servies |
| Online and distance learning leaders | |
| Library national and international leadership | |
|
Research and Innovation |
|
| Research IT and Data Sciences | |
| Innovation | |
| Collaborative leadership and social responsibility | |
|
Service Excellence |
|
| Process improvement, efficiency, quality and best practice | To improve service to students by adopting DevOps methods for key servies |
| Long‐term IS strategic planning and linked professional services | |
| Information Security |
University's Strategic Vision for 2025 the main elements of the vision that this project contributes to are highlighted in bold.
| A unique Edinburgh offer for all of our students | Commentary |
| • all of our undergraduates developed as student/ researchers with clear, supported pathways through to Masters and PhD | |
| • all our students offered the opportunity to draw from deep expertise outside their core discipline | |
| • a highly satisfied student body with a strong sense of community. | |
| Strong and vibrant communities within and beyond the University – making the most of our unique offer of world-leading thinking and learning within one of the world’s most attractive cities | |
| A larger, more international,staff who feel valued and supported in a University that is a great and collegial place to work, develop and progress | |
| More postgraduate students – underpinned by the best support in the sector to ensure we attract the brightest and best regardless of ability to pay | |
| A strong culture of philanthropic support focussed especially on our students and on outstanding research capabilities. | |
| Many more students benefiting from the Edinburgh experience (largely or entirely) in their own country – supported by deep international partnerships and world- leading online distance learning | |
| Sustained world leading reputation for the breadth, depth and interdisciplinarity of our research supported by strong growth in research funding and strong international partnerships – drawing from well-established and less well developed sources |
|
| An estate that matches expectations, responds flexibly to changing student and staff needs, and showcases the University |
X |
|
A deeper and earlier collaboration with industry, the public sector and the third sector – in terms of research; knowledge exchange; and in giving our students the best possible set of skills for their future |
|
| Digitial Transformation | Commentary |
|---|---|
| Describe how the changes this project delivers will contribute to the digitial transformation of the Service |
IS Change Programme - How will this project's Deliverables and Benefits promote the Themes
| IS Change Programme Theme | How the project deliverables and benefits contributes to change |
| Project Management | |
| Working Together | ITI and Apps - and other areas - working together to develop a single service for ISG and building the foundation for a University-wide service.
The present project will implement and facilitate features of the much larger IS transformation programme, albeit it is understood that the activity is not an official part of the programme. A short report will be published to summarise all of the achievements made during the project; This report will include recommendations of further activities which would enable the delivery of a. The intended road-maps and b. The best value from the implementated technologies. Subject to the success of the present project, a further innovation project may be recommended. |
| Standards and Technical Leadership | Setting new standards for software development, software deployment and working methods |
| Staff Learning and Development | |
| Service Based Culture | DevOps strongly promotes service-based culture |
| Equality and Diversity | |
| Innovation | Improved product and service delivery through the improvement of the way we work is the reason for the project |
| Flexible Resourcing | Sharing centralised technologies and agreed processes make flexible resourcing easier |
| Communication and Branding | Git could become a new UoE service |
Priority and Funding
This is an Innovation Funded Project. £18.5K, equating to 60 days effort (through contractor back-fill).
However, additional funding for contractor effort is available to Research Services to help bring up this service. The project team should work closely with Research Services to enable this work to proceed, but if it is not deemed acceptable then this project should deliver a smaller Git service. Either way, the Git service must be suitable for supporting the automation and configuration management requirements of ISG (Specifically, but not limited to, Puppet Enterprise).
Service Excellence - Information and Security
Using current security protocols,
Service Excellence - Process Improvement, efficiency, quality and best practice (Social Responsibility and and Sustainability)
Not Applicable
Digital Transformation
Not Applicable
IS Change Programme - How will the execution of this project promote the Themes
| IS Change Programme Theme | This is a transformational project, moving IS along new ways of working together via technical leverage from GIT (and Puppet) and from the new ways of working that using these tools effectively means |
| Project Management | This project further develops the project method within ITI |
| Working Together |
ITI and Apps will work closely and productively to achieve success. They will also inteface with with colleagues from other IS Divisions and schools.
|
| Standards and Technical Leadership | The element of technical leadership is essential to the success of this project |
| Staff Learning and Development |
New skills as part of GIT development and DevOps culture
|
| Service Based Culture |
We helping the service to shift-left?
|
| Equality and Diversity |
n/a
|
| Innovation |
This is an innovation project funded by innovation funding.
|
| Flexible Resourcing |
Contracting the build of the GIT is under consideration.
Using colleagues across divisions as well as contract resource. Sharing technologies and processes will make flexible resourcing easier in future.
|
| Communication and Branding |
Guidance (please remove) Communication: The project will need communication to be in place for the ISG commnity given the new service is meant for all ISG.
Branding: Unlikely to require branding given this is a non-stuednt facing service, Use gel.ed.ac.uk to access assets and guidelines for branding of communications, websites, mobiles if thi sis not the case.. Use the Student Digital Guidelines.
|
Governance
| Role | Name | Division / Group / Team / College / School and Title |
|---|---|---|
| Project Sponsor | Tony Weir | ITI |
| Programme Owner | Gavin MacLachlan | CIO |
| Programme Manager | Tim Gray | Apps |
Project Board
| Role | Name | Division / Group / Team / College / School and Title |
|---|---|---|
| Executive | Not Applicable | |
| Senior User (may be the Executive) | ||
| Senior Supplier | ||
| Other board members | ||
| c |
Planned Project Timelines
See Project Milestones.
End of Planning : 28/2
Requirements Gathering : 30/4 Design and Build and Testing- May-June Documentation- May-June
Resources Skills and Cost
Budget
The project will fund 60 days of developer effort
It is proposed that the technical resources in Table 1 are allocated to the project. In addition, project management and leadership, leadership of existing IS teams, project evangelism and IS staff availability for awareness and education will be required. The project budget is £20k although ideally, more funding and time would be available to deliver the project.
It is proposed that two resources from each of Applications and Infrastructure and one from Research is allocated to all of the applicable cells above and that those same resources are used to deliver the activities in each and every cell. It is the general consensus that activities should be scheduled such that they occur in time-blocks of at least one day at a time per resource and that resources should work in the same location, away from their normal workplace. This approach should ensure maximum focus, collaboration and communication are achieved.
Table 1 - Resources required to deliver each high-level task during each phase of implementation
|
Task |
Design |
Create |
Migrate |
Hand-over |
Full adoption |
Total |
|
Git |
A2 I2 R2 |
A2 I2 R2 |
A2 I2 |
A2 I2 |
Out of scope |
A8 I8 R4 |
|
Puppet |
A2 I2 |
A3 I3 |
A2 I2 |
A3 I3 |
Out of scope |
A9 I9 |
|
Automation |
A2 I2 |
A2 I2 |
N/A |
A2 I2 |
Out of scope |
A6 I6 |
|
Road-maps |
N/A |
A1 I1 |
N/A |
A1 I1 |
Out of scope |
A2 I2 |
|
Diagram |
N/A |
A1 I1 |
N/A |
A1 I1 |
Out of scope |
A2 I2 |
|
Methods |
Throughout |
|
|
|
|
A27 I27 R4 |
Key: # = Days A = Applications I = Infrastructure R=Research
Back-fill must be provided for the selected Application and Infrastructure resources. In the interest of ensuring that sufficient time is available to complete the demanding but extremely worthwhile project outcomes to the highest standard, approval will be sought to secure student resources, rather than professional IT contractors, as back-fill. In addition to the required technical resources, about 10 days will be needed from team leaders and senior managers for monthly or bi-monthly meetings, 5 days from nominated advocates (One further staff member per team) and a further 5 days will be needed from technical teams who intend to use the new technologies for skills transfer and hand-over.
The project will be delivered between February and June 2017 and the IS Apps and ITI Directorate are the sponsors of the project. Proposed stakeholders will include Applications, ITI, Library, Edina, Learning/Teaching/Web and current service providers for SVN and VSS (All TBC). The IS management team will be offered the opportunity to define and capture key metrics (Say, Availability, Deployment success, Unplanned work, Change volume, Lead times, Mean-time-to-recover) during the project but the definition & capture of these metrics is out-of-scope due to resource constraints
Project Team
| Role | Name | Division / Group / Team / College / School and Title |
|---|---|---|
| Project Manager | Maurice Franceschi | ISG |
| Technical Lead and other technicians |
Barry Tait leading team
Andrew Hobden IS Apps Production / Chris Cord IS Apps Production / Mairi Fraser IS Apps Software Development / Riky Harris IS Apps Technical Development / Barry Tait ITI Enterprise Services / Kenton D'Mellow ITI Research Services / Gordon Chung ITI Enterprise Services / Mark Small EDINA |
ISG |
| Business Analyst | Project Team provide requirements | |
| Business Lead(s) | Project Team provide requirements | |
| Service Contact | Dave Fergusson | |
| User(s) - who will help in analysis, testing and sign-offs | Project Team wil UAT | |
Tolerances
The budget is fixed at 60 days (£18.5K) - there is no tolerance on this so further moneys must be escalated to Sponsor.
Quality
| Milestone | Sign-Off means | Date of Milestone | Who signs-off (Accountability) |
Start of Project |
Project can begin, is in line with Programme and Portfolio priority, has resource |
Add initial planning dates for milestones |
Sponsor, Programme Manager |
End of Planning |
Project Brief, Plan, Estimated Budget, Risks - all approved. Project has resource approved by section head for the estimated effort. Project has funding for effort for other costs. |
28/2 |
Sponsor, PM, Programme Manager, Section Head(s) |
| Communication Plan | If not completed by end of planning then indicate when planning done | 30/4 | PM |
| End of Analysis | quality and completeness of analysis | 21/4 | business analyst/business lead / senior user/ PM |
| End of Design | quality and completeness of design | 31/5 | technical lead / senior supplier/ business lead / senior user/ PM |
| End of Build | quality and completeness of build | 15/6 | technical lead / senior supplier/ PM |
| Acceptance | overall quality of deliverable, UAT has been passed, Intergation testing successful, all components technically checked - fit for delivery to live service | 30/6 |
technical lead / senior supplier /business lead / senior user /business analyst /PM
|
| Security QA | deliverable satisifies security | 30/6 | Section Head |
Delivery |
Change to Service can proceed |
7/7 |
Sponsor, PMservice owner/ service operations manager (helpline) |
| Handover to Support | support can take over running of the Service | 7/7 | service owner/ service operations manager (helpline) |
Closure |
Project can close |
14/7 |
Sponsor, PM |
Assumptions
That we can reasonably expect our GIT service for ITI/Apps to be acceptable as-is for LUC and LTW and USD, and also that Edina should have sufficient similarity of requirements to allow a unified Git service
Constraints
Lack of availability from Research Services team
Risks
None other than generic risks that budget may be insufficient, we may be unable to complete with financial year.
Issues
None
Previous Lessons Learned
N/A
Dependencies
ENT019 is dependent on this project.
The present project will be delivered during a time of significant change and flux as the IS Change Programme is delivered. While the project is an innovation project, which is allowed to fail, every effort will be made to ensure a. The successful delivery of all of the success criteria and b. The integration of the project into the wider IS Change/Project Programme. There will be significant overlap or inter-relatedness between the present project and a number of projects and technologies as listed in table 2.
The project lead and/or manager will seek to work with equivalent resources working on these related activities to ensure that synergies, design, planning and mutual awareness are achieved. Puppet Practitioner meetings will be run monthly and less formally than before from Feb 2017. Focus will be mainly on the present project and no inter-project dependencies will be allowed.
Table 2 – Standard and Innovation projects
|
Project and/or Technology |
External contact (TBC) |
Degree |
|
University Git implementation |
Kenton D'Mellow |
Overlap |
|
Existing Puppet implementation |
Matt Hodson |
Relationship |
|
ITI automation project |
Barry Tait |
Overlap |
|
IS change programme |
Iain Fiddes, Graeme Wood, Stefan Kaempf |
Overlap |
|
Centralised Logging |
Kirsty Waddell |
Relationship |
|
Automation using Docker |
Riky Harris |
Relationship |
|
TestRail |
Iain Fiddes |
Relationship |
Communication
Will emerge as part of requirements gathering
References
[1] API003 – DevOps and Automation - Project reports
[2] We may integrate or explore r10k, Jira, Jenkins, Artifactory & FPM or equivalent
Appendix
A. The following relationships to the IS Change Programme were referenced in the proposal
Student experience and the unique Edinburgh offer
- Improved software and platform quality
- Improved response time for new systems/features
- Reduced downtime and risk during the introduction of new systems/features"
Innovation
- Significantly different way of working"
Collaborative leadership and social responsibility
- The main premise of DevOps is collaboration
- Empowered teams who share objectives behave with more social responsibility
Process improvement, efficiency, quality and best practice
- DevOps is expected to improve the efficiency of processes and the quality of delivery
- Configuration management is expected to improve the efficiency and quality of delivery
Long-term IS strategic planning and linked professional services
- Best practise & consolidation onto standard, enterprise-standard tools
~ Working together
~ Standards and technical leadership
~ Service-based culture
~ Flexible resourcing
~ Innovation
~ Staff learning and development
~ project management
- DevOps is perfectly compatible with ITI
Information security
*** end of project brief ***