Below is a dialog for a specific implementation presented as an FAQ as a case reference. The questions are specific to a prospect and their technical environment and needs. It is a reference to address common topics.
Question: We are still very early in the product evaluation effort, but I wanted to take this opportunity to informally communicate with you in an attempt to gain some technical perspective on the IT issues relative to SSP. First, some high level background:
Answer: SSP is fully Open Source, you get the code, and no fees for a license. You can participate in the OSS community as much or little as you would like. There is no obligation to join anything, or provide resources. We will release the OSS version in July.
Question: We are a PeopleSoft shop, and as we understand that Sinclair is not, but we believe there are some colleges out there who have integrated SSP into their PeopleSoft environment. Unless you have integrated SSP into PeopleSoft, we’ll defer those questions to a different source.
Answer: SSP uses a “middle” integration DB to create a simple way to connect to many systems without doing code or DB level changes to the core application. It also acts like a API in that if the App changes, or your source changes, we don’t need to level the other app to match. If you can get to your data in SQL (data or view), XML, or Flat File it can be consumed into that integration DB. The data flow is typically Uni-Directional with SSP being a subordinate of the SIS for data like address and phone…etc. There is very little in SSP that would need real-time data, so we often see a DW used as the data source (GPA only changes a couple times a year, no need to pull it real time). We have not had a data integration be a stopping point yet and I believe we have a vendor doing a PeopleSoft integration now. Typically IT groups have already managed the difficult parts of this integration for a LMS such as Blackboard or Angel. We can send you a data integration guide, field mapping examples, create scripts for the SQL tables …etc. You can probably do this work at CLC, but we have vendors that could also help or do it for you. There are also commercial tools designed to extract data from SIS systems that could be purchased if you were looking for a more off the shelf tool with commercial support.
Question: We are aware that normally the initial integration of SSP is performed/assisted by a commercial vendor, and we are discussing that aspect with several vendors at this point.
Answer: We suggest Infinum, and Unicon for the technical work, and Enrollment Builders for the functional consulting, but it is an Open Source App and other vendors could do the work, it is mostly a matter of having domain expertise, the right tech background, and the resources. The system is built in Java/HTML5 using a fully OO design, and a lot of standard frameworks. The Data is in MsSQL or Postgres, but would most likely work in any SQL compliant DB. There is no logic embedded in the data tier so the BD can work on many different platforms.
Question: We understand that Sinclair’s IT department is not in the SSP customer support business.
Answer: Been down this road, and it takes away from our ability to support our core customers. Although it is fun to work on other systems and processes at times. We certainly will offer advice and be your partner, but we can’t be your official support structure. We also plan to actively participate in the OSS community, and may well fix a bug you report or answer a question to the group …etc.
Question: What I did want to query you on, if you have time in your busy schedule to respond, is the following:
Answer: After working with SSP for the time that you have, what would be the top two or three high level considerations that you would recommend CLC focus on vis a vis SSP integration? After viewing Russ Little’s presentation, one aspect that leaps out at me is a need for a strong DBA component, if for nothing else than to link and maintain the various database management components and tasks. What, again at a high level, are some others?
SSP is fairly low maintenance once it is setup and configured. It is not a system we get many HD tickets on. The considerations I would have for an implementation would be the initial data integration, Web Server support (Tomcat or other Java Engine), and building App Admin expertise to mange and config the system to meet user needs (IT or non-IT). (of course you can hire this done as much or little as you want).
Data Integration - If you can handle ETL tasks or reporting you should probably be ok. Working with uses to make sure they are asking for the “right” data can take time, as well as having the users define the business processes they are supporting so the config (App Expertise) can be done correctly.
We have a Sys Admin who does the deployment of the app to a web server, a DBA to deploy to the SQL server, and a PM/Operations Engineer to manage that work. It is part of the portfolio of apps we support (58 or so). It by no means has dedicated support resources. On the Dev side we do have a FTE on it right now, to support the grant work.
If you plan to modify the code we can discuss that setup in more depth, but basically it is a Java / HTML5 architecture and build/test process.
Question: Has Sinclair documented any lessons learned and/or best practices relative to SSP implementation and/or maintenance? If so, could CLC obtain copies to assist in our product evaluation?
Answer: I don’t have a formal lessons learned doc like you might keep for a purchased app since it is developed in house, and we change the code/setup …etc in the Dev process to address issues. Most of the lessons learned are more on the user side or things, but on the IT side some things might be:
Accounts used for LDAP need to be set not to expire or are checked on a schedule. Hard to login when the service cant auth.
Changes to the mail server/AV tools need to be monitored so outbound messages don’t get stopped. This often happens with new mail relays, AV updates, or new white list procedures …etc.
It is nice to have a dev/test site to try things out on and do training, but you might want to change the color scheme to make it clear it is not the production system.