Newsletter - 200803 - March 2008

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1 Welcome
1.1 Editor's Message

2 JA-SIG Project Updates
2.1 Central Authentication Service (CAS)
2.1.1 CAS Server
2.1.2 CAS Client for Java
2.1.3 CAS Client - mod_auth_cas
2.1.4 uPortal 3 and CAS Quickstart
2.1.5 CAS Content at Spring Conference
2.2 uPortal
2.2.1 uPortal 3.0.0-RC2 Release Announcement
2.2.2 Pre and Post Conference Seminars (Sunday, April 27th and Wednesday, April 30th, 2008)

3 Community News and Events
3.1 "Higher Education Solutions: The Commmunity Source Way!" - Program Schedule Announcement
3.2 Spring uPortal Developers Meeting (April 30-May 2, 2008)
3.3 Portlet Development Training - (May 1-3, 2008)
3.4 Kuali Days VI - Save the date!
3.5 9th Sakai Conference (July 1-3, 2008)
3.6 EDUCAUSE 2008 (October 28-31, 2008)

4 JA-SIG in the Blogosphere
4.1 Spring Conference
4.2 Andrew Petro on uPortal

5 Community Member Profile
5.1 Q&A with Adam Rybicki

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Welcome to the March 2008 issue of the JA-SIG Newsletter.

Spring is in the air. Spring Conference, that is. The Conference organizers have put together a wonderful program and are really trying hard to get the word out. We have tried to provide a flavour of the fun in store for those lucky enough to attend this year's event.

We also have Project Updates, Event Announcements, some information on new blogs (including an excellent article by Andrew Petro on uPortal), and another very interesting interview, this time with Unicon's Adam Rybicki.

As always, feel free to send your comments or content to newsletter at jasig dot org.

Enjoy!
Mark Mark (University of Manitoba), Editor, JA-SIG Newsletter

The CAS development team continues to make progress on the CAS Server 3.2.1 release which will include a number of bug fixes and enhancements as well as new features such as "Remember Me" functionality, a JPA-backed TicketRegistry (for better cross-platform database support).

The CAS client for Java 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 versions have been released with a bunch of minor fixes and enhancements. The CAS clients are finally in the public Maven 2 repository (thanks to the Spring Security team for their assistance with this). Finally, the CAS Client for Java 3.1.2 will be the version of the CAS client used in the upcoming Spring Security 2 release.

The mod_auth_cas team continues to make refinements, fix bugs, and introduce new features for this popular CAS client.

Eric Dalquist, with the help of Andrew Petro and Jen Bourey, has released a uPortal 3 RC2 Quickstart that comes configured out of the box with CAS: http://www.ja-sig.org/downloads/uportal/uPortal-3.0.0-RC2/

Expect tons of great CAS and Identity Management content! The conference committee has already announced a pre-conference seminar presented by Adam Rybicki entitled "Implementing CAS: From Download to Deployment". If you're interested in learning more about CAS, be sure to sign up!

Thanks,
ScottS (Rutgers University), Lead Developer, JA-SIG Central Authentication Service

JA-SIG is proud to announce the release of uPortal 3.0.0 Release Candidate 2. This is the second release in the uPortal 3.0.0 line based on the core uPortal code base and the first 3.0.0 release candidate based on the core uPortal code base. Full release notes are available http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/UPC/3.0.0+RC2 along with a uPortal 3.0 release overview http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/UPC/3.0

This release includes the following new features and fixes:

A new theme and skin along with a more understandable directory structure for layout and skin related files. The new skin is also using jQuery to provide drag and drop features which are enabled by default. Thanks to Gary Thompson from Unicon and Jen Bourey from Yale for this work.
Layout cache friendly dynamic title support for channels and portlets. Dynamic titles for channels and portlets work on every render now. Thanks to Nick Bolton from Unicon for this work.
Quickstart generation scripts. Quickstart generation is now as simple as running an Ant task.
Consistent cache scheme and configuration based on Spring-Modules Caching API. Most existing dynamic caches have been converted to use the new API and it is currently backed by EHCache though other caching frameworks can easily be used.
CAS 3.2 is bundled with uPortal and is used as the default authentication mechanism. Thanks to Scott Battaglia from Rutgers, Andrew Petro from Unicon and Jen Bourey from Yale for this work.
CAS Proxy tickets are available to JSR-168 portlets as a user attribute. Thanks to Jen Bourey from Yale for this work.

Source and Quick Start downloads are available on the uPortal All Release page. The generated Maven site which includes JavaDocs and other interesting is available as well: http://developer.ja-sig.org/projects/uportal/3.0.0-RC2/

This Release Candidate is Feature Complete. At this point the only changes that will be made before a General Audience release are bug fixes. I would encourage everyone to try the release and please file bugs that you find in the JA-SIG Issue Tracker

I want to thank everyone who contributed to the development both directly and in-directly. Having this developer community available for both code and design insight has been invaluable.

Eric Dalquist, uPortal 3.0.0 Release Engineer

If you plan to be in St. Paul a bit early, consider taking in the Pre-Conference offering on uPortal: uPortal Migration - Juggling Environments and Software Upgrades (with Eric Dalquist and Drew Wills).

On Wednesday, there will be a post-conference seminar entitled Installing, Configuring, and Customizing uPortal given by Unicon's Andrew Petro.

You can find the full seminar outlines at http://www.ja-sig.org/conferences/08spring/seminars.html

We are pleased to let you know that the JA-SIG Spring 2008 program schedule is posted at the conference site:

http://www.ja-sig.org/conferences/08spring/index.html. (Click the "Program" link at the top of the page.)

Conference events run Sunday, April 27th through Wednesday, April 30th.
Supplementary seminars are scheduled before and after the conference.
A BarCamp and a UCamp are scheduled on Wednesday afternoon (See site descriptions for these unique events)
Presentations, Panel discussions, Poster sessions, BOF's, Case Studies, How-to's.
Keynotes by Ira H. Fuchs, Kaye Howe, and a panel of Community Source leaders
CAS, DSpace, Fedora, Fluid, Internet2, Kuali, Sakai, uPortal

Join us for the most comprehensive gathering of the higher education open source community in 2008!

Early registration discounts are available through March 23, 2008.

Register now at http://www.ja-sig.org/conferences/08spring/registration.html .

Don't forget to make your hotel reservations! You can make your reservations at the Crowne Plaza St. Paul - Riverfront by visiting http://www.ja-sig.org/conferences/08spring/accom-travel.html and following the instructions for booking online or calling the number provided on the page.

Subscribe to the conference blog, The Community Source Way http://jasig2008.blogspot.com, for news and updates about the event.

Join the Conference networking site at http://ja-sigspring08.crowdvine.com/.

We hope to see you there!

The JA-SIG Spring 2008 Program Committee

In an on-going effort to reduce the travel and time burden on developers wishing to participate in the uPortal and JA-SIG community, we will be holding the spring uPortal developers meeting the Wednesday through Friday following the JA-SIG conference. Arrangements are being made for meeting space either at or near the conference hotel and developers interested in uPortal, Fluid, CAS, or any other related project are encouraged to attend.

This time is a wonderful opportunity for some face to face meetings and development. From the uPortal side of things I'm sure we will be talking about what to include in uPortal 3.1, how development is going on some of the new portlets we're been hearing about on the list, and how our work with Fluid and other open source projects is going.

There is a stub of a wiki page for this meeting which will be filled out with more information as it becomes available. Please feel free to add agenda items you would like to talk about or see talked about to this page

I'm looking forward to working with everyone that week and hope you can make plans to be there and participate!

Eric Dalquist (University of Wisconsin - Madison), uPortal 3.0.0 Release Engineer

Unicon is tentatively planning a Portlet Development Training class in St. Paul, Minnesota for three days (Thursday, 1 May 2008 through Saturday, 3 May 2008) following the JA-SIG Conference.

This class serves as an introduction and guide to developing JSR 168 standards-compliant Java portlets. Lecture and hands-on exercises range from the building and deployment of portlets to techniques for organizing code in a clean, architecturally-sound way. Topics include:

JSR 168 Portlet specification overview
JSR 168 Portlet API
Obtaining 3rd-party portlets
Portlet installation and development
Development Environment
Advanced portlet applications
Portlet security and more

The cost for the class is $2,250 per person.

If you are interested in attending this class, please register here.

If there is enough interest, we will confirm the class and announce the exact times and location by Monday, March 24, 2008.

SAVE THE DATE

Kuali Days VI is scheduled for May 13 and 14, 2008 at the Westin Chicago Northwest. We will have a full agenda of content on Kuali Financial System (multiple tracks), Kuali Research Administration, Kuali Student System, and Kuali Rice (infrastructure and services like workflow). By popular request, we will also have a half day seminar in advance of the conference on Kuali Financial System basics.

Please join with your colleagues to discover the promise of the Kuali applications. With release 2.0 completed, the Kuali Financial System is a full featured Higher Ed Financials application that is ready to be considered for implementation. Kuali Research Administration will show the basics of their first release, Proposal Development (including Grants.gov). Kuali Student will be working on the functionality that must be included in a modern, service-oriented student application. Kuali Rice will show the benefits of a shared infrastructure for core business applications.

Kuali Days V in November was sold out. We have chosen a larger venue to allow more participation during this conference. You can review the Kuali plans at www.kuali.org. Hotel registration is available now, conference registration will be available on Wednesday, March 12.

"Join us in Paris, France for the 9th Sakai Conference

The Sakai Foundation is pleased to announce that the 2008 Sakai Community Conference will be held in Paris, France. The dates will be Tuesday-Thursday, 1-3 July, with pre- and post-conference sessions and activities on Monday, 30 June and Friday, 4 July. All meetings and conference sessions will be held at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie. The ever popular Sakai technical demonstrations will take place on Wednesday evening, 2 July, at the Marriott hotel nearby."

For further information, see the conference web site at: https://sakai.educonference.com/paris/index.php

"Mark your calendar for the premier information technology event in higher education, EDUCAUSE 2008, October 28-31 in Orlando, Florida. The program 'Interaction, Ideas, Inspiration' will include preconference seminars; track and poster sessions; small group meetings; and corporate exhibits, presentations, and workshops. ... "

Source: EDUCAUSE 2008 Web Site - http://www.educause.edu/e08

In an effort to augment the dissemination of information relating to the upcoming Spring Conference and to facilitate communication among participants to it, two new web sites have been set up. The first is intended to allow the Conference Committee to post "hot news" regarding the conference for all to see and the second is of the "social networking" variety. Be sure to check them both out.

Blogspot: http://jasig2008.blogspot.com

Crowdvine: http://ja-sigspring08.crowdvine.com/

In this blog/article, Andrew discusses the attributes which make uPortal such a compelling portal solution in Higher Education. http://www.unicon.net/node/961

I think it is fair to say that this post is intended to complement an earlier article entitled "What Makes uPortal Unique?" written by Jonathan Markow and profiled in a previous edition of the JA-SIG Newsletter.

You can also find a brief blog by Andrew on uPortal content at the upcoming Spring Conference. He includes a nice summary of the uPortal-related conference presentations.

This month, Executive Director Jonathan Markow interviews Adam Rybicki. As someone who has been part of our community since the beginnings of JA-SIG and uPortal, Adam, now a consultant with Unicon, has some interesting views to share. Equally stimulating are his perspectives on the state of the art of service oriented architectures.

My first experience with open source was in 1992 when I got an early copy of Linux. It was version 0.82 or something like that. It was rough to say the least. Most of the software for Linux was available only as source, and you had to build it yourself. But first you had to build the GNU C compiler. That was fun!

It wasn't until the beginning of JA-SIG that I got involved in open source by contributing to a project. The early contributions were mostly results of discussing the experience of early adopters of portals in higher education. Input from the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington, which built their own portals, helped us bootstrap the uPortal project and begin designing its architecture. Later in the project, as a JA-SIG commercial member, my company helped facilitate contributions from our customers. Nowadays we continue with these contributions, but we have expanded our services beyond uPortal.

Yes, several come to mind:

1. Executive sponsorship
2. Target audience involvement
3. Portal content planning
4. Capacity planning

Implementing CAS 2.0 was a breeze. I didn't need any documentation to add an LDAP or Kerberos authentication handler, swap the logo on the login screen, and up comes an enterprise single sign-on server. CAS 3.x is evolving into a fully-fledged Identity Management product. Now all we need is to agree what constitutes a fully-fledged Identity Management product.

CAS-enabling applications has become easier over time because more client libraries are available. For example, we now have a choice of three different Java clients. Older clients work as well as they did with CAS 2.0, and credit for that goes to the project's strict adherence to the CAS protocol. The recent introduction of the Single Sign-Out option in CAS server, however, may require the client libraries to be upgraded to take advantage of that feature.

Before working with OpenEAI, I had not appreciated the complexities of structured integration. Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) and their implementations utilizing Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) products have the potential to greatly improve how the dozens of enterprise software systems at institutions work together. OpenII, having the experience of working with several enterprises, and with the use of OpenEAI methodology to guide their architectures, has a great potential to accelerate institutions' adoptions of SOAs.

The most obvious difference between JA-SIG and OpenEAI is project scope. JA-SIG encompasses more than a single open source project and is presently launching project incubation to draw in more higher-education developed JSR-168 portlets and additional modules. OpenEAI is focused on the particular problem of structured enterprise integration using an ESB.

Another difference is the community-source nature of JA-SIG. The enthusiasm with which institutions adopted uPortal and CAS was clearly responsible for the rapid growth of the JA-SIG community which is in turn responsible for the continued growth and adoption of uPortal and CAS. JA-SIG's approach is very open and draws participation from a wider geographic distribution of education institutions and commercial participants. Informal and open participation and leadership comes at a cost of chaos, something I see uPortal in particular working to address with creation of the uPortal steering committee. It will be interesting to see uPortal continue its open participation while achieving better project coordination.

OpenEAI and OpenII realize a more focused approach to practicing open source and collaborative development, which has advantages in project coordination but is less radically participatory.

The uPortal initiative is XML and XSLT heavy at its core. I have seen uPortal's use of lightweight channels that utilize RESTful enterprise services. Adopting a proxy CAS approach whereby the portal proxies authentication to backing services, obtaining XML suitable for rendering in the portal via XSLT, has proven an efficient and secure way to implement a portal-appropriate dashboard view on various university applications and systems.

These sorts of tactical, organically-grown SOAs give CIOs immediate return on the service-oriented investment. While developing SOAs in this manner might introduce limitations similar to those of point-to-point integrations, the risks are much smaller, as there are always consumers of the services being built.

Several universities, like the University of Colorado or the University of Illinois, have taken a risk-averse approach to building their SOAs as needs for more service endpoints are recognized. To improve the longevity of these services, enterprise architects at these institutions are conscious about keeping their services client-agnostic, even though they initially design them with specific client applications in mind.

In the current atmosphere of tight budgets CIOs make pragmatic rather than visionary decisions. While keeping the final SOA vision in mind, enterprise architects can implement tactical integration solutions that will evolve into a coherent architecture with time. This approach, because of almost inevitable corrections down the road, may turn out to be more expensive in the end, but the opportunistic solutions will show return on investment more readily.

A few years ago a popular German brewery used an advertising slogan "...Because life is too short to drink cheap beer." While their lager would not be my favorite, as I prefer strong ales, I did like the slogan.

What I remember from my last visit to St. Paul is that the most popular local beer comes from Summit Brewing. Their beers are served almost everywhere. As for micro-breweries, Surly Brewing is not too far from St. Paul, and it should be served downtown St. Paul.

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JA-SIG Newsletter - March 2008

Archives available in the JA-SIG wiki at: http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/JSG/Newsletter

If your institution or company has items of interest to the JA-SIG membership, please submit them via email to newsletter@ja-sig.org.

The next JA-SIG Newsletter will be published on or about April 15th, 2008. Articles for that edition of the newsletter should be submitted no later than Monday, April 14th, 2008.

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JA-SIG Newsletter - March 2008

1 Welcome

1.1 Editor's Message

2 Project Updates

2.1 Central Authentication Service (CAS)

2.1.1 CAS Server

2.1.2 CAS Client for Java

2.1.3 CAS Client - mod_auth_cas

2.1.4 uPortal 3 and CAS Quickstart

2.1.5 CAS Content at Spring Conference

2.2 uPortal

2.2.1 uPortal 3.0.0-RC2 Release Announcement

2.2.2 Pre and Post Conference Seminars (Sunday, April 27th and Wednesday, April 30th)

3 Community News and Events

3.1 "Higher Education Solutions: The Community Source Way!" - Program Schedule Announcement

3.2 Spring uPortal Developers Meeting (April 30-May 2)

3.3 Portlet Development Training (May 1-3, 2008)

3.4 Kuali Days VI - Save the date!

3.5 9th Sakai Conference - Paris, France (July 1-3, 2008)

3.6 EDUCAUSE 2008 (October 28-31, 2008)

4 JA-SIG in the Blogosphere

4.1 Spring Conference

4.2 Andrew Petro on uPortal

5 Community Member Profile

5.1 Q&A with Adam Rybicki

Q. Adam, you have participated in JA-SIG activities since the early days of our organization. Tell us something about your history with open source and JA-SIG, in particular.

Q. As someone who has seen a number of campus uPortal projects, have you found a common set of characteristics that are required for a successful uPortal implementation?

Q. Besides your uPortal involvement, you've also done work with CAS, starting back in the days of the original Yale distro and continuing to the present. What observations do you have about CAS's evolution during this time?

Q. Recently you did some extended work with the OpenEAI/OpenII groups. Can you tell us about that?

Q. Can you tell us how an open source project like OpenEAI compares and contrasts with your JA-SIG experiences?

Q. As someone who has followed the recent interest in service oriented architectures, do you think that the promise of these technologies have been realized at all for higher education by now?

Q. These kinds of SOA examples, while useful, are tactical and opportunistic. How far away do you think we are we from seeing more comprehensive uses of SOA based on enterprise application architectures?