CNM Cloud Project

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CNM Cloud Project (hereinafter, the Project) is an endeavor to provide the Career Network Ministry with CNM Cloud in order to deliver services of CNM Digital. Friends Of CNM Cloud Administrator is responsible and members of Careerprise Team (hereinafter, the Team) shall be accountable for this Project.


Requirements

Business requirements

Main wikipage: CNM Digital

Technical requirements

Main wikipage: CNM Cloud
A big portion of technical requirements is also published in Russian -- https://wiki.ksacerts.com/ru/Брацко_Облако

First phase -- beginnings

Initial user stories

Initial user stories were created by Loredana C. and are published at CNM Digital by Loredana C.

Software used in early stages

The first private cloud was built on an OpenStack instance. The applications included Opplet.net, Redmine, Apache Subversion (SVN), Moodle, MediaWiki, and WordPress. However, applications were not moved to the cloud because of its immaturity. Only Opplet.net and Redmine are still operational after the cloud was destroyed in order to cut costs.

History of the beginnings

Executive summary of the Project's beginnings. The beginnings of the Project could be characterized by three factors:
  1. Many experiments including software ventures and examinations of both technology and various organizational structures designed to support that technology;
  2. Unbalanced and often disruptive availability of resources. Although the Team enjoyed assistance of a number of volunteers, donor's money, software licenses, and venues, the Team's inability to pay for technology sustainability ultimately led to several adverse events including the major technology crash in 2016 and further necessity to destroy the first cloud.
  3. Poor recording, documenting, and storage facilities. Just few training materials were saved and just a couple of videos were taken at hundreds of training sessions. As a result, volunteer time could be utilized way more efficiently.
Nonetheless, a few significant concepts, lessons learned, and a few lines of code were developed during this initiating phase of the Project.
Early tech training. In 2012, Gary Ihar organized first hands-on technology training sessions of Career Network Ministry in Tysons Corner Microsoft store. Its descendant sessions used more venues. With few exceptions, the training sessions were conducted on a volunteer basis. In 2012-2016, the following training topics were covered by the following trainers:
Topics (software) Trainers and presenters
Usage
Administration
Development
Early public cloud usage. Due to a generous grant, the Team obtained more than 200 packages of subscriptions, more notably, for Microsoft Azure, and online support. In 2012-2013, Gillermo Lopez first and Roger Akins later led a project to distribute those subscriptions among patrons of Career Network Ministry. The project was closed after the donor decided to end the donation.
Early learning systems. Initial works that later contributed to the Project were started as early as in 2007. The initial development group consisted of Gary Ihar as the code developer and product owner and Romanof as the PHP developer. Until 2014, solutions were presented by various combinations of MediaWiki and Moodle. A special solution to integrate those, called Opplet.net, was initiated and coded by Gary Ihar in 2014. Revisions by Zlomovsky completed its first sprint in 2015. The first version of Opplet.net used SimpleSAMLphp as its authentication tool.
Early enterprise-wide systems. In 2015-2016, the concept of CNM Digital emerged. Loredana C. developed initial requirements for a complex system to serve patrons of Career Network Ministry (CNM). Later, the requirements were posted at CNM Digital by Loredana C. To implement those, Alexandrovich joined the Team as the system architect and Natalia did so as the solution architect. Instances of Liferay and SuiteCRM were added and the platform was moved from DigitalOcean to Hetzner and newly based on Proxmox. Several instances of Odoo were also installed, but never integrated to the platform because Odoo didn't support SimpleSAMLphp. Romanof also installed an instance of Redmine separately from the platform. In addition, Romanof completed the second sprint of Opplet.net while moving its initial code from plain PHP to the Yii framework.
Crash of 2016. In 2016, the platform collapsed and all developments, but Opplet.net and Redmine, were lost. At the moment of the crash, Opplet.net and Redmine were still stored at DigitalOcean.
Early private cloud. In 2016-2017, several endeavors were undertaken. Alexander was the primary technology vendor at that time, Eunice contributed to its requirements, and Wushnevska worked on Odoo and Redmine instances. Instances of Odoo were installed at careernetworkministry.org, theeconomicgroup.org, and worldopp.org. At the same time, the first private cloud was built using OpenStack. However, no instance was integrated on this cloud, particularly, because of lack of documentation. Wushnevska tried to address the documenting task, but her retirement from the Project postponed all of the developments. Later, the first cloud was destroyed in order to cut expenses. Separate Odoo instances are still alive.
Organization as the primary challenge. So, the first cloud endeavors were not sustainable mostly or significantly because of their lack of documentation. In order to develop the cloud documentation, Gary Ihar once hired a system engineer, Anand, in India, but the work on the cloud architecture couldn't be completed without documented requirements for CNM apps, which were not available at that time. Generally speaking, project organization had had been the greatest challenge since the Project's inception. The development group needed some combination of business analysts, system engineers, and project managers, but couldn't find qualified candidates who would have matched the existing budget.
Early management training. Since late 2012, project management training became one of core services that the Team offered. About a half of the training sessions was conducted on a volunteer basis. In 2012-2017, the following training topics were covered by the following trainers:
Topics Trainers and presenters
Project management
  • General concepts: Dr. Jack Tsou, Daniel M. Gonzales, Mercedes Butler, Charlotte McKenzie, Chuck Taylor, Jay Parrish, Dr. John Colleman III, Dr. Ali Abedi (PMBOK Guide)
  • Certification: Ibrahim Alamin (PMP)
  • Supporting concepts: Bill Fournier (systems engineering), Emmanuel Amanyeiwe (business intelligence)
More than one hundred of its participants had gotten their PMP certifications constitute the overall success of the training. However, with regard to the Project, the training hasn't accomplished its mission to bring business analysts, system engineers, and project managers on the board.
Early recruitment of learners. In the Washington DC metro area, the Team recruited through emails sent to patrons of the Career Network Ministry and Tech Events for Managers and Entrepreneurs meetup group. Although the Team succeeded to recruit hundreds of learners, the overwhelming majority of them participated spontaneously. It was hard to find committed participants who would stay with the Team for long time since the beginning of the Project. Further, the trend was even more negative as the unemployment rate lowered in the United States.
Early worldwide outreach. In 2016, the Team attempted to reach out to international learners. Later, this idea matured into the WorldOpp programme.
In 2017-2018, several endeavors to recruit vocational learners were attempted through some job-bidding websites worldwide. However, those websites granted access to only those freelancers who expected to exchange their time to money and were not willing to dedicate enough time to learning. More importantly, the technology behind the programme, most notably, CNM Courseware, wasn't developed fully yet. At that time, it seemed that the interested candidates just couldn't be directed well remotely, without personal involvement.
In winter of 2017-2018, Gary Ihar traveled to Ukraine in order to find partners for the WorldOpp programme in its current state. Nevertheless, no partners were identified since the programme was still in its development stage. Two other reasons that may have contributed to that result were (a) the low unemployment rate in Ukraine and (b) its residents' tendency to favor the traditional educational system. The programme was clearly not ready to be launched then.
Idea of orientation.

Deliverables of the beginnings

  1. Software:
  2. Concepts:

Second phase -- embryo

User stories for the embryo

Three user stories shall describe completion of the second phase:

Software used in the embryo

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
Middleware In this phase, user management software that manages authorization of users and their access to CNM apps Opplet.net Written specifically for the Cloud using the Yii framework
Apps User interface to allow end-users to interact with CNM Middleware
Productware Studio for Careerprise vendors to document their developments and store developed files Fixett Redmine, Apache Subversion (SVN), (possibly) containers
Courseware Learning management software to accommodate learning processes Campus Moodle
Wikiware Knowledge management software to develop corporate knowledge collaboratively and access the results Wiki MediaWiki
Contentware Content management software to empower CNM websites FriendsOfCNM.org WordPress

History of the embryo

Executive summary of the embryo phase. Several concepts, lessons learned, and pieces of software that was developed in the First phase have been utilized in the 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 the core package of technology that would support its development and recruitment process;
  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 most simple system for onboarding employees and Careerprise vendors. The Team called this system embrio.
Instead of a SimpleSAMLphp instance, Romanof now implemented an OpenLDAP instance for authentications. That development completed the third sprint of Opplet.net. A new instance of MediaWiki is used for CNM Wikiware, an instance of Moodle is used for CNM Courseware, instances of Apache Subversion (SVN) and Redmine are for CNM Productware. No private cloud itself is going to be launched in the second phase of the Project.
Minimal viable product. In early of November of 2018, some minimal viable product (MVP) is going to be launched. It shall include some registration, enrollment into Careerprise Orientation and, further, into WorldOpp Placement Seminar, and granting rights of NetAnyone, NetConsumer, CertAssociate, and CertFellow.
New administrative model. While remaining acting as the product owner, Gary Ihar decreased his Project involvement in order to increase new fundraising efforts. Romanof started playing a PHP sub-project manager role in addition to his technology development role. Additional finances have been supposed to be used in recruitment of new staffers and new software developments.
The most comprehensive documentation for this attempt was originally created in Russian (using CNM Productware and the Russian part of CNM Wiki at https://wiki.ksacerts.com/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 Wiki.
Early recruitment of staffers. 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 so far.
  • 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 Wiki so far.
A clear recruitment and onboarding process is considered being the main problem to be solved next. Thus, the initiative was temporarily postponed until the process based on renewed technology is developed and, particularly, Careerprise Orientation and WorldOpp Placement Seminar are launched and get operational.
Idea of incubator. An idea of Opplet incubator was developed in order to address shortcomings in candidates' skills, especially in project management, business analysis, and technical writing. Its idea is to hire those apprentices who could act as prospective members of WorldOpp Fellow Staff. One of possible implementations could be a group of 7-10 apprentices working on some local site somewhere in Kenya.
This group shall:

n outline of Septem Artes Administrativi was developed for this programme.

Deliverables of embryo phase

Projected deliverables:
  1. A software system capable to execute the User stories for the embryo;
  2. Contracts between Friends Of CNM and Careerprise vendors to run:
  3. Curricula at CNM Campus:
  4. Organizational structures:

Future phases

Third phase -- organization

CNM Enterpriseware shall be the primary deliverable of the third phase. Other deliverables may include Eventtune, CNM Calendar, CNM Videoshareware, CNM Mailware, CNM Talkware. New sprints of Opplet.net are also expected.

Fourth phase -- security

Private clouds such as Dev Cloud, Production Cloud, and Control Cloud shall be primary deliverables of the fourth phase of the Project.

Fifth phase -- federation

At the fifth phase of the Project, the initial requirements, CNM Digital by Loredana C, shall be revised and tested on the completion. This phase is also reserved for any developments, especially federations, that haven't been accomplished in the previous phases.

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 Wiki on every software included in the second phase;
  3. Natalia. As a vendor liaison, Natalia is working on CNM Wikiware documentation.

Completion rates

The DADI is the development cycle that includes 4 components: (1) discover, (2) analyze, (3) design, and (4) implement. 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 DADI component
Discover Analyze Design Implement
Platform Infrastructure (temporarily, outsourced) Second (requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett; DigitalOcean is temporarily used for implementations) 90% 90% 90% 90%
Middleware 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
Productware Fixett Second (requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett; the current implementation is located at a classified URL) 50% 50% 50% 50%
Courseware Campus Second (requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett and English in CNM Wiki; the current implementation is located at https://campus.ksacerts.com) 25% 25% 25% 25%
Wikiware Wiki Second (requirements and designs are drafted in Russian in Fixett and English in CNM Wiki; the current implementations are located at https://wiki.ksacerts.com and, in Russian, at https://wiki.ksacerts.com/ru) 90% 90% 90% 90%
Contentware CNM website Second (requirements and designs are drafted in English in CNM Wiki; some implementations launched in the first sprint include worldopp.org and careernetworkministry.org) 25% 10% 10% 0%

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.
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