Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Indico: The Future of CDS Agenda Thomas Baron (IT-UDS-AVC)

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Presentation Overview Current Situation CDS Agenda and Indico Compared Migration plan Perspectives … and demo

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Current Deployment Situation (1) Both CDS Agenda and Indico are currently in production at CERN CDS Agenda: Exists since 1999 Stores timetable of events and related files Hosts mainly seminars, meetings and small conferences Is installed in several places worldwide:several places worldwide CERN (> Agendas, ~ files) more and more users 25 institutes: IN2P3, NiKHEF, Fermilab, ICTP, Elettra Trieste… Is used to create headers of many web pages (CERN, ATLAS, CMS…) Is available as open-source under the GNU GPL

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Current Deployment Situation (2) Indico European project: In production at CERN since 2004 (first time use: CHEP’2004) Currently hosts >25 conferences Currently big events only Usage is growing fast (+50 % in 6 months) Also available as open-source under the GNU GPL

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Current Deployment Situation (3) Indico (main features) Helps managing the conference: Programme setup Document submissions (abstracts, files) Tracks management Registration management Publications generation: Conference DVD Helps with conference proceedings Various lists (authors, presenters, abstracts, registrants…) Exposes its public data through an OAI gateway Uses CDS as metadata search engine

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN CDS Agenda and Indico Compared (1) CDS Agenda Weaknesses:InDiCo Answers: Not flexible enough (rigid structure: agenda->session- >talk) Allows all combinations of elements Not portable enoughIs easily portable to all platforms (windows, linux…) Not enough possibilities of delegating the modification Integrates a complete delegation mechanism at all levels (from the management of single files to the whole conference) Not enough protection mechanisms Integrates a complete protection solution CDS Agenda was the basis for Indico specifications Indico solves many CDS Agenda weaknesses:

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN CDS Agenda Weaknesses:InDiCo Answers: Dynamic htmlStandard html 4.0 Local login onlyLocal or global login (NICE) Not suited for big conferences (modification interface tends to be very slow – missing features) Manages as easily simple events and huge conferences without any performance loss Implements traditional conference management processes (user registration, call for abstract…) CDS Agenda and Indico Compared (2)

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Migration (1) Migration kit developed at CERN Command-line python program Overview of the migration: Simple mapping between all descriptive data in CDS Agenda and Indico Same hierarchical organisation Close event representation File system Will be distributed to all existing CDS Agenda installations worldwide

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN pcdh94 pcdh90 agenda.cern.ch File archive Zope DB Mysql DB indico.cern.ch HTTP server Migration (2) Now

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN sunuds95 pcdh94 indico.cern.ch HTTP server pcdh90 Zope DB File archive Migration (3) After

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Migration (4) ProblemsSolutions existing external links to CDS Agenda items/files/categories redirection to Indico scripts (ids are preserved by the migration) non web-based import/exports rewrite all such programs counterparts new end-user interface write extensive user guides and documentation make sure all existing CDS Agenda features exist in Indico set up a demo server for user testing from July

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Migration (5) June Indico demo server online for user trial Loaded with all CDS agenda metadata Modifications possible but lost Impact on users: None

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Migration (6) July Indico on its new server Faster, more reliable service Impact on Indico users: 1 hour interruption

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Migration (7) August IT branches migrated Important feedback from IT users Impact on IT users: 1 hour interruption – IT categories don’t appear in the “other meetings” link of main page until the full migration is completedmain page

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Migration (8) September Seminars and courses branches migrated Impact on users: Seminars and courses don’t appear anymore in the “other meetings” link of main page until the full migration is completed

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Migration (9) December All other branches (Experiments+Departments) Impact on users: 5 hours partial interruption of service. Indico is the only conference management software at CERN.

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Indico Perspectives (1) Already a huge task list (> 6000 hours)huge task list Interface improvement program (based on the feedback from EGEE) Closer integration with other conferencing services: room booking, resource booking, video- conferencing, seminar recording… Internationalization (in collaboration with IN2P3) Collaborative features: instant messaging and presence (in collaboration with LBNL)

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Indico Perspectives (2) Fulltext search (in collaboration with IT- UDS-CDS) Proceedings creation improvement (in collaboration with IT-UDS-PUB)

Desktop Forum, 9 June 2005 CERN Demo + Contact Demo CDS Agenda DTF meeting Indico DTF meeting Indico Team Questions?