project cloud 9 a z-powered learning environment
DESCRIPTION
MARIST/ IBM Joint Studies. Project Cloud 9 a z-Powered Learning Environment. by Michael Lavacca, Sean Goldsmith, Deyaa Abuelsaad, and Sean Dunn. Our Goal. The enablement of the Sakai application on IBM’s WebSphere Application Server and DB2 software, and the System Z Mainframe. What is Sakai?. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
June 13 – 15, 2010
Project Cloud 9 a z-Powered Learning Environment
by Michael Lavacca, Sean Goldsmith, Deyaa Abuelsaad, and
Sean Dunn
MARIST/IBM Joint Studies
June 13 – 15, 2010
Our Goal
The enablement of the Sakai application on IBM’s WebSphere Application Server and
DB2 software, and the System Z Mainframe.
June 13 – 15, 2010 3
• Sakai is an “adaptable, interoperable, reliable, scalable, and flexible enterprise application that supports teaching, learning and scholarly collaboration.”
• The Sakai Community develops and distributes the open-source Sakai CLE, an enterprise-ready collaboration and courseware management platform that provides users with a suite of learning, portfolio, library and project tools.
• Sakai’s open approach allows institutions to deploy, host and modify
What is Sakai?
the software in whatever manner best supports the institutions skills, needs and goals.
• Sakai’s open development process allows local enhancements to be incorporated into future versions of the software.
June 13 – 15, 2010 4
Overview of Sakai
•160+ production sites•1M+ Users•110 institutional
members•60 core developers
Teaching ToolsAssignmentsGradebook
Tests & Quizzes Module Editor
Section ManagementSyllabus
Sakai Functionality
Portfolio ToolsForms
EvaluationsGlossaryMatricesLayouts
TemplatesReportsWizards
AnnouncementsDrop BoxEmail ArchiveResourcesChat RoomForumsThreaded DiscussionMessage CenterMessage Of The DayNews/RSS
Preferences PresentationProfile / RosterRepository SearchScheduleSearchWeb ContentWebDAVWikiSite Setup
June 13 – 15, 2010 5
Example - iLearn
June 13 – 15, 2010 7
Challenges
• Sakai 2.6 was a ‘moving target’• Our contributions affected multiple components• Approximately 60 issues
– 4 critical, 45 major, 8 minor, 3 trivial
• Issues– Differences between Sun JRE and IBM JRE
– Differences between Tomcat and Websphere
• Integrating with rSmart’s DB2 work• Resolved issues via coding or configuration changes
June 13 – 15, 2010 8
Project Timeline(dates are 2008-2009 unless otherwise mentioned)
• Notified Sakai Foundation about our goal to implement Websphere and DB2 support (2/28)
• Created JIRA to track feature (4/21)• Created screencast (5/29)• Created Sakai Confluence section (6/13)• Bootcamp (6/6)• Initial test of Sakai on Websphere (6/13)• Announced on Sakai devlist (6/17)• Submitted CCLA and CLA and gained IBM OSSC approval• Development - Continuous testing and bug fixing (6/16-9/17)• Called for vote on Sakai devlist for merge (9/18)• Accepted and merged (9/23)• Code Freeze (9/29)• QA and bug fixes (10/01/08 – release of 2.6 on 07/15/09)• Development to support 2.7 release (07/09 – Present)
June 13 – 15, 2010 9
Process DiagramTester Developer Tool Owner
Discover WAS related Issue
Create JIRA issue
Verify (reproduce) issue
Develop & create fix
Lead Developer
Verify fix in Development Environment (WAS &
Tomcat)
Verify Issue & assign to
appropriate developer
Review fix & assign JIRA to tester
Create patch & attach to JIRA
issue
Verify fix on Testing
Environment (WAS & Tomcat)
Commit patch to branch & request
branch merge from tool owner
Review patch & merge if approved
June 13 – 15, 2010 10
Automated Testing
Introducing Selenium IDE: The workhorse of QA!
• Selenium IDE is a Firefox Add-On developed by OpenQA that allows for Agile Testing.
• Selenium allows for quick and easy automated test creation through a combination of recordable actions and HTML.
• We chose Selenium as a testing tool because of the necessity for reusable, scalable, and automatable test scripts that could be executed in a much shorter
time span than manual testing.
June 13 – 15, 2010 11
Lessons Learned
July 2009 1110th Sakai Conference - Boston, MA, U.S.A.
• Implement a well-defined internal process that complements the community’s development process
• Use available automated testing tools to keep up with the community’s development pace
• Communicate with the community
• Start early in the project
• Use community tools to share information (JIRA’s, Wiki, Weekly Calls, Sakai Devlist)
• The community is helpful, ask for guidance when needed
• Present at Sakai conference
• Consider partnering with an educational institute
• Provide access to the commercial components of your project
June 13 – 15, 2010 13
Grinder
• Open-Source Java based load testing framework
• Can simulate hundreds of unique users on a web application
• Reports statistics for HTTP method calls to Grinder console
June 13 – 15, 2010 14
Tuning Environment
June 13 – 15, 2010 15
Tuning Results
We found the optimal environment for Sakai using WAS/DB2 on zLinux to be:
• 2 virtual CPUs defined in Linux • 2 GB of memory defined in Linux • Two swap partitions
1.Swap-1 (97.644 MB) 2.Swap-2 (781.156 MB)
• WebSphere Servlet cache enabled • WebSphere Heap Size set to 256 MB - 1280 MB
Using these parameters, performance was found to increase by 185% for 25 users from the original configuration. A graph comparing the two configurations is shown below.
June 13 – 15, 2010 16
WAS/DB2 Mainframe Original Config vs. New Config
June 13 – 15, 2010 17
WAS/DB2 Mainframe vs. WAS/DB2 Blade
June 13 – 15, 2010
SOLUTIONThe final product and present &
future directions
June 13 – 15, 2010
zSakai Environment
19
June 13 – 15, 2010 20
Cloud 9 Environment
June 13 – 15, 2010 21
Landing Page
June 13 – 15, 2010 22
Sakai Skins
June 13 – 15, 2010 23
AP/College Chemistry Course
June 13 – 15, 2010
Marist/IBM Academic Cloud
24
Learning Management Software
• Management
• Collaboration
• Content
Business Intelligence
Business Analytics
• Cognos
• SPSS
• TM1Virtual Desktops
Collaborative Development Software
• Rational Team Concert• RDz / Eclipse
z/OS Environment• DB2• WAS• CICS• IMS• ISPF • z/OS Test Drive Images