CNM Cloud Embryo

CNM Cloud Embryo (hereinafter, the Embryo) is the second phase of CNM Cloud Project (hereinafter, the Project). A team of developers (hereinafter, the Team) started working on that phase in January of 2018 and, as of April of 2019, this phase is still current. CNM Cloud Beginnings is the previous phase.

Requirements

User stories

Three user stories shall describe completion of the second phase:

User story	Initial role	Allowed actions	Results	New role
First	As a NetAnyone, I shall be able to:	Click any Get-Started Clickable; Get to the Opplet.net registration page; Fill in my credentials including (a) login name, (b) password, and, (c) optionally, email address; Submit my credentials	Get to the Welcome to Friends Of CNM course at CNM Certs while being automatically enrolled	NetConsumer
Second	As a NetConsumer, I shall be able to:	Complete the Welcome to Friends Of CNM	Get a choice of enrolling into the WorldOpp Orientation or Careerprise for Developers	CertAssociate
Third	As a CertAssociate, I shall be able to:	Get enrolled into the Careerprise for Developers; Complete Careerprise for Developers
Fourth		Get enrolled into the WorldOpp Orientation; Complete the WorldOpp Orientation and get automatically enrolled into the WorldOpp Placement Seminar; Complete the WorldOpp Placement Seminar	Get enrolled into the WorldOpp Bootcamp	CertFellow
Fifth	As a CertFellow, I shall be able to:	Complete the WorldOpp Placement Seminar	Further results shall be accommodated manually, so be assigned Opplet roles.

Default role permissions

App / Role	NetAnyone	NetConsumer	CertAssociate	CertDeveloper	CertFellow
Nets	Visitor	User
Certs	Visitor	Student
Wikis	Visitor		Registered		Admin
Pages	Non‑registered		Contributor		Author
Labs	No role			User	No role

Software to be used

CNM software		Description	Service	Base(s)
Platform	Infrastructure	Hardware, operating system(s), environment for programming languages to operate, database management systems, web servers	(temporarily, outsourced)	Not important for the Project
	Netware	In this phase, user management software that manages authorization of users and their access to CNM apps	Nets	Written specifically for the Cloud using the Yii framework
Apps		User interface to allow end-users to interact with Opplet
	Labware	Studio for Careerprise vendors to document their developments and store developed files	Labs	Redmine, Apache Subversion (SVN), (possibly) containers
	Certware	Learning management software to accommodate learning processes	Certs	Moodle
	Wikiware	Knowledge management software to develop corporate knowledge collaboratively and access the results	Wikis	MediaWiki
	Pageware	Content management software to empower websites	Pages	WordPress

Up-to-date story

Several concepts, lessons learned, and pieces of software that was developed in the CNM Cloud Beginnings have been utilized in this successor phase. The Team calls the new phase Embryo because the Embryo of the new cloud is going to be developed during this phase. The key developments could be summarized as follows. The Team:

1. Identified:
   • Business needs. These needs are expressed in User stories;
   • System architecture including the core package of technology that would support User stories;
2. Designed and is implementing a new recruitment process based on the core package of developed technology;
3. Dramatically increased funding for both technology development and recruitment.

Second cloud initiation

In 2018, Romanof as a PHP developer, Gary Ihar as the product owner, and Natalia as a vendor liaison initiated a new cloud endeavor. Its goal is to create the simpliest system for onboarding employees and Careerprise vendors. The Team called this system embrio. No private cloud itself is going to be launched in the second phase of the Project and even the next phase, which emphasis shall be a new Odoo instance.

During the CNM Cloud Beginnings, a SimpleSAMLphp instance, as an integration tool, worked well, but it had a few drawbacks, most importantly, in difficulties to integrate an Odoo instance. Instead of a SimpleSAMLphp instance, Romanof now implemented an OpenLDAP instance for the directory access. That development completed the third sprint of Opplet.net.

Launch of the Wiki

In spring of 2018, this very CNM Wikis was launched. A new instance of MediaWiki is used for CNM Wikiware. Temporarily, this development used tentative requirements.

New documenting model

Lack of documentation was critical in troubles of the CNM Cloud Beginnings. Now:

1. Technical requirements for any critical software shall be developed before awarding of any contract. These requirements shall be published at this CNM Wikis;
2. After awarding any contract, Friends Of CNM shall grant its winner an access to the corresponding project at Fixett;
3. Technical documentation for the developed software shall be kept posted at Fixett.

The most comprehensive documentation for the Embryo phase was originally created in Russian (using Fixett and the Russian part of CNM Wikis at https://wiki.friendsofcnm.org/ru); however, since the recruitment efforts are shifting to East Africa and the United States, new documents shall be posted at the English part of CNM Wikis.

New management approach

The management model changed substantially:

• With some exceptions, Gary Ihar served as the only product owner, business analyst, systems engineer, and project manager from the Project inception. Those exceptions were contributions by Romanof, most notably, into Opplet.net, and CNM Digital by Loredana C. New apprentices are supposed to serve as product owners, business analysts, systems engineers, and/or project managers for those CNM apps that are being developed as deliverables of the Project. Thus, they are encouraged to substitute some part and expand another part of the work of Gary Ihar, so he would be able to expand his efforts to fund this change. A list of recent Gary Ihar's contributions can be found at Special:Contributions/Gary; basically, he developed about 99.98% of CNM Wikis as of April of 2019;
• Romanof started playing a PHP sub-project manager role in addition to his technology development role;
• Natalia is encouraged to become a manager for an endeavor undertaken in order to create requirements for CNM Wikiware.
• The Team is actively recruiting the project administrator; the requirements are posted at Friends Of CNM Cloud Administrator.

Early recruitment of apprentices

In summer of 2018, dozens of candidates, primarily from Kenya and Philippines were tested for WorldOpp Fellow Staff positions, but no one has been eventually brought on the board permanently.

• The majority of most motivated candidates were concentrated on their efforts instead of getting the results. That suggests that their project management skills needed some development;
• If those candidates were oriented on some results, their desired results were not communicated with the product owner and, consequently, their efforts couldn't be funded. That suggests that their business analysis skills needed some development;
• It looks like documenting remains at very least one of the biggest problems. No candidate has accomplished more than a dozen of actions on CNM Wikis so far.

A clear recruitment and onboarding process was considered being an important problem to be solved next. The endeavor produced a solid database of those who can work having clear instructions and under close supervision, but the Team didn't have such positions at that time.

Idea of the Incubator

An idea of WorldOpp incubator was developed in order to create an onboarding process generally and, to develop candidates' skills in business analysis, product ownership, project management, and records management particularly. Its idea is to hire those apprentices who could act as prospective members of WorldOpp Fellow Staff.

The apprentice candidates who participate in the incubator shall be enrolled into WorldOpp Placement Seminar and, consequently, WorldOpp Bootcamp and practice their concepts while creating and bettering curricula, as well as epics, user stories, and other documentation for CNM Cloud at CNM Wikis.

One of possible implementations could be a group of 7-10 apprentices working on some local site somewhere in Kenya. To make it real, a partner on the ground should be looked for. However, the Project should mature more in order to be attractive to that partner.

Launch of the Certs

In the last months of 2018, CNM Certs' launch was expedited in order to be used by students of Shanghai Jian Qiao University. An instance of Moodle is used for CNM Certware. Initially, Gary Ihar opposed launching the Certs without complete technical requirements. However, there was an urgent need in some learning management system used for a program of Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in that university in Shanghai, China. The Certs was tested successfully. Its technical requirements are still needed to be developed.

Development of the Orientation

In January of 2019, Kevin temporarily joined the team to help developing materials of the WorldOpp Orientation. Its first session, Welcome to Friends Of CNM, was ready to be launched in mid-February, but Gary Ihar decided to transfer this session from CNM Certs to CNM Pages.

Work on the Pages

In early February of 2019, the CNM Pageware was developed in order to make the launch of FriendsOfCNM.org and other CNM Pages possible. In mid-February, the search for a front-end developer started. As a result, Paul was recruited in March and started working in early April. The worldopp.com was the first result of this endeavor.

Minimal viable technology

By April of 2019, the PHP sub-projects led by Romanof outrun the other developments on the server-side. Because of that fact, Gary Ihar decided to launch a minimal viable product (MVP) of future CNM Cloud based on PHP only. The following product had been defined and launched:

1. CNM Nets that allows for:
   • Registration of new users in CNM Cloud;
   • Assigning NetAnyone, NetConsumer, CertAssociate, and CertFellow roles in CNM Cloud; and
   • Friends Of CNM communities;
2. CNM Mails that allows for emailing;
3. CNM Contacts that allows for customer relationship management and temporarily plays a role of CNM Ventures, which is scheduled to be launched in the next phase of the Project;
4. CNM Certs that allows for courses and assessments such as WorldOpp Orientation and CNM PMP Bootcamp;
5. CNM Wikis that allows for collaboratively-developed documents;
6. CNM Videos that allows for videosharing;
7. CNM Labs that allows for file development;
8. CNM Pages that allows for websites such as worldopp.com and friendsofcnm.com.

Volunteer and partner outreach

New developments on both server- and client-sides underlined the need in documentation. Basically, the documentation remained the only unsolved task preventing the Phase from its completion.

To solve this challenge, Gary Ihar decided to hire a new team member for new outreach endeavors. Generally, the Team needs apprentices, volunteers, and partners. Since the Team is not ready for the apprentices outreach, the new hire would be asked to look for volunteers and partners:

1. Volunteers will be recruited for the newly-defined CNM Technology Board. Volunteers may be helpful for development of services;
2. Partners will be sought for the educaship line of products. Partners may be helpful for recruitment of participants and landing of customers.

Deliverables of Embryo phase

Projected deliverables:

1. A software system capable to execute the User stories;
2. Contracts between Friends Of CNM and Careerprise vendors to run:
   • CNM Infrastructure;
   • CNM Labware;
   • CNM Certware;
   • CNM Wikiware;
   • CNM Pageware.
3. Contracts between Friends Of CNM and members of WorldOpp Fellow Staff to run:
   • WorldOpp Project and Fixett;
   • The Project;
   • CNM Certs;
   • CNM Wikis;
   • One or more CNM Pages.
4. Curricula at CNM Certs:
   • WorldOpp Orientation;
   • WorldOpp Placement Seminar;
   • WorldOpp Bootcamp.
5. Organizational structures:
   • WorldOpp incubator.

Current state

Developers

Three members of the development group who are currently working on the Project are as follows:

1. Romanof. As the PHP sub-project manager and developer, Romanof developed all working parts of the existing technology. Romanof also documented in Fixett a deal of the work done;
2. Gary Ihar. As the product owner, Gary is drafting documentation in CNM Wikis on every software included in the second phase;
3. Natalia. As a vendor liaison, Natalia is working on CNM Wikiware documentation.
4. Paul. As a front-end developer, Paul is working on user interfaces of CNM Pages.

Completion rates

The DAMP is the development cycle that includes 4 components: (1) discover, (2) analyze, (3) model, and (4) plan. No component is fully developed to the date. The following table presents estimates on every component of every software to be launched:

CNM software		Service	Sprint	Description	Discover	Analyze	Model	Plan
Platform	Infrastructure	(temporarily, outsourced)	Second	Requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett; DigitalOcean is temporarily used for implementations	90%	90%	90%	90%
	Opplet	Opplet.net	Fourth	Requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett; Opplet.net handles user management for CNM Cloud	75%	75%	75%	75%
Apps
	Labware	Fixett	Second	Requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett; the current implementation is located at a classified URL	50%	50%	50%	50%
	Certware	Certs	Second	Requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett and English in CNM Wikis; the current implementation is located at https://certs.friendsofcnm.org	50%	50%	50%	50%
	Wikiware	Wikis	Second	Requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett and English in CNM Wikis; the current implementations are located at https://wiki.ksacerts.com and, in Russian, at https://wiki.friendsofcnm.org/ru	50%	50%	50%	50%
	Pageware	CNM Pages	Second	Requirements and designs are drafted in English in CNM Wikis; the first instance is installed at https://friendsofcnm.org; its requirements have been started at FriendsOfCNM.org	50%	50%	50%	50%

Challenges

Lack of procurement documentation is still the primary obstacle for the Project to move forward faster. There are a plenty of developers ready to implement technical requirements, but those requirements are needed to be documented. If some backup has been de-facto implemented, the state of cyber-security is either inappropriate or unknown.

Vacancies

Neither education nor experience is needed for the vacancies listed below. Full-time (at least, 40 hours a week) availability and willingness to learn on the job (and any learning includes so-called "errors" and "mistakes") are absolute musts. Since English language is the primary medium at Friends Of CNM, some level of English capacity is needed as well.

• Urgently needed. Any assistance with documentation published at CNM Wikis for upcoming procurement or topics related to procurement of CNM Wikiware, CNM Certware, CNM Labware, CNM Pageware, CNM Infrastructure is urgently needed. These topics may include any information on what needs to be done, how to select the best vendor, and how to make sure that the chosen vendor has delivered the requested product.
• Needed on an ongoing basis. As always, the Team is hiring staffers of WorldOpp Fellow Staff generally and Friends Of CNM Cloud Administrator specifically to expedite the Project.

Related lectures

• Introduction to CNM Cloud.