HIFIS Conference
The first conference on HIFIS took place at DESY Hamburg.
Roadmap
2019
2020
2021
2022
January 2022
Initial Review of Cloud Service Portfolio
The primary goal is to check whether the services in and the processes around the Service Portfolio continue to fulfill defined requirements. Consequently, the review may lead to changes in the Service Portfolio itself as well as the Process Framework. The results will enter the annual HIFIS report and further Service Portfolio Maintenance.
User-specific Service View in Cloud Portal
In Cloud Portal, logged-in users shall be able to have a specific view on the services they are allowed to use, as well as service usage conditions. Also, a user can see and manage their relevant service notifications.
(This work package was postponed from September 2021 to January 2022, as no user-specific information will be available by then.)
February 2022
Publish training program for the first half of 2022
The education and training work package publishes the offered training events for the first half of 2022 on events.hifis.net.
April 2022
Service Canvas available in Plony
Service Providers can now provide all service information asked for during the Onboarding process in Plony, our data management system based on Plone.
Establish an introductory course on Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) with Python
- The initial course material will be made available for reuse.
- A first workshop will be held.
May 2022
The draft of the Cloud Rulebook has been submitted to the Helmholtz Assembly of Members
The Assembly of Members of the Helmholtz Association have received a draft for the definition of technical, administrative and data protection regulations to simplify the use of the Helmholtz Cloud and its Services, and to ensure that applicable conditions are met.
June 2022
Empower CI/CD #1 - Hold an initial GitLab CI course
An initial course on using GitLab CI will be held. At this time also the initial course material will be published.
Refine and publish the consulting handbook
Improve the consulting handbook in all aspects, based on past experience. and publish it.
Publish training program for the second half of 2022
The education and training work package publishes the offered training events for the second half of 2022 on events.hifis.net.
July 2022
AAI: Establish improved process for Virtual Organisation Registration
Virtual Organisations (VOs) have been introduced in Helmholtz AAI during 2020. Requests to create new top-level VOs are currently being processed on end user request, using the HIFIS Helpdesk and considerable manual interaction for VO creation and documentation. In 2022, a transparent process shall be set up and implemented to allow VO handling in larger scales than so far.
Initial Prototype of a Helmholtz Research Software Directory
The basis for the software catalogue will be the Research Software Directory developed at Netherlands eScience Center. In close collaboration with the original maintainers, an adapted version for Helmholtz will be developed. The development of the HIFIS Research Software Directory will be coordinated at GFZ in collaboration with DLR and UFZ, and aided by the HIFIS Software Technology work package. In this milestone a basic prototype with the initial functionality will be deployed, marking the beginning of the test phase with selected test users.
HIFIS Conference
Until summer, HIFIS will give all stakeholders the opportunity to strengthen our community and to contribute to the further development of HIFIS, especially in light of the upcoming review. As a part of this, HIFIS will organize an All-HIFIS conference in Berlin, possibly as presence meeting, if circumstances allow.
Cloud Portal offers Service Categories and Keywords
Service categories and keywords categorise the Helmholtz Cloud Services and simplify the selection of a suitable service.
August 2022
Relaunch of hifis.net
The hifis.net homepage will be relaunched, with improved and aligned design. Based on the progress that HIFIS meanwhile made, having implemented and distributed numerous services to the scientific communities, we will increasingly concentrate on the presentation of scientific use cases.
Onboarding Process of new Cloud Services completely integrated in Plony
All steps of the Onboarding Process for new Cloud Services are completely integrated into Plony, the Plone-based database. This enables Service Providers and HIFIS administrators to maintain the Service Catalogue online and collaboratively. The Service Description is automatically transferred to Cloud Portal.
September 2022
HIFIS Review
After a bit more than three years of initial phase, the progress and further perspectives of HIFIS will be reviewed. Earlier in 2022, potential perspectives will be proposed and formulated in a pre-review report. End of September, the main review meeting will take place at DESY.
Empower CI/CD #2 - GitLab CI as a Service with at least 3 more partners
The GitLab CI as a Service offer is planned to be expanded to at least 3 more partners within the Helmholtz association.
October 2022
AAI: Foster automated deprovisioning information query from IdPs
During 2021, the framework to automatically request user deprovisioning information from IdPs via attribute query has been principally set up for the central AAI (development) instance and a small set of Helmholtz IdPs. During 2022, the task is to remove remaining inconsistencies and set up the productive deprovisioning process for all IdPs, at least with the already implemented fallback of manual user based confirmation of active accounts.
The draft of the GDPR agreement is submitted to the Helmholtz Assembly of Members
In close cooperation with the data protection officers of the Helmholtz Association, we have developed a joint controller agreement that covers the Helmholtz Cloud core components that operate the cloud.
November 2022
Helmholtz Backbone Network: Usage Policies
For 2022, a set of policy rules, regulating the basic participation conditions of the Helmholtz Backbone network, shall be worked out and put into action for the participants.
Empower CI/CD #3 - Support Windows in GitLab CI
So far the Helmholtz Codebase service does not support the Windows operating system for executing jobs. As part of this milestone the Helmholtz Codebase service will support the Windows operating system to run CI jobs.
Scale with rising usage figures through advanced maintenance automation
As part of this milestone it should be possible to
- test the core functionality of the Helmholtz Codebase service automatically,
- automatically setup a test infrastructure via OpenStack.
December 2022
Improving KPIs for Consultation
In 2021 the proposed goal of introducing a post-consulting survey for KPI-measurement was achieved by the Consulting work package. Therefore, this year the work package will focus on improving the KPIs by analysing software projects of clients, measure potential improvements and the long-term effects after a HIFIS consultation.