Promoting Open Source Software Through Cloud Deployment: Library à la Carte, Heroku, and OSU Michael B. Klein Digital Applications Librarian Margaret Mellinger Engineering Librarian

Presentation Overview About Library à la Carte ◦What is Library à la Carte? ◦Distribution & Adoption Cloud Deployment ◦Why the Cloud? ◦Hosting Options ◦Challenges and Compromises ◦Pilot Project ◦Evaluation ◦Future Directions

What is Library à la Carte? Custom content management system ◦Course assignment pages, subject guides, portal pages and tutorials Pages built around reusable modules ◦Text, images, media widgets, links, feeds Free & open-source Download, install, and start using Customizable and extensible

Distribution 5 major releases since 2007 Scores of demo accounts requested Downloaded hundreds of times 20+ known installations

Barriers to Adoption Lack of in-house technical expertise ◦Installing Ruby and dependencies ◦Setting permissions ◦Webserver configuration ◦Database administration ◦Running scripts from the command line ◦Hand-editing configuration files ◦Installing upgrades/applying patches ◦Diagnosing and reporting problems Unwillingness or inability to devote technical or human resources

Why the Cloud? Pre-installed ◦Lower the barrier for adoption Dedicated ◦Provide libraries with their own installations where they can do real work Portable ◦Entire installation can be moved from the cloud to a local install or vice versa Elastic ◦Storage space and resources can be allocated on the fly

Hosting Options Amazon Web Services ◦Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) ◦Controllable via console or API ◦Infrastructure as a Service (“Bare Metal”) ◦Small instance: 10¢/hr. = $72/mo. = $864/yr. ◦Boot volume and storage costs are extra ◦Refactoring required to take advantage of elasticity ◦Additional refactoring required to compensate for ephemeral server instances

Hosting Options JumpBox ◦Portable virtual machine ◦Still “Bare Metal,” but host-agnostic ◦Requires acceptance by JumpBox team ◦Installation, maintenance, and upgrades may require vendor action ◦Still need to provide hardware or pay EC2 costs

Hosting Options Eucalyptus ◦Open Source cloud platform ◦Based on Amazon cloud model and API ◦Software is free; infrastructure is not ◦We would have to provide hardware and additional support

Hosting Options Heroku ◦Platform as a Service ◦Dedicated Ruby/Rack/Rails platform ◦Git-based deployment ◦Ruby API ◦Automatic, easy scaling and load balancing ◦Predictable costs ◦Over 2 dozen available add-ons ◦Smallest instance: FREE

Hosting Options

Challenges and Compromises No server-side file storage ◦Requires another solution such as Amazon S3 No dedicated configuration files Library à La Carte was written for MySQL Heroku uses PostgreSQL Developers aren’t necessarily thinking of the cloud when adding new features

Deployment Application

Pilot Project Single insitutional partner Deployed in January 2010 Goals: ◦Administer and monitor installation ◦Track usage, database size, bandwidth ◦Develop cost model based on likely usage scenarios ◦Gather feedback from partner

Pilot Project – Librarian Evaluation Initial evaluation June 2010 Overall experience very positive Need to document differences between standalone and cloud-based app Users used to page creation had trouble adjusting to content management workflow

Pilot Project – User Evaluation Faculty and students consider Library à la Carte to be a valuable resource Goal: “Collect all the necessary sources students need to use in their clinical year.” Students “thrilled with having one starting place.” Already receiving requests for additional content.

Pilot Project – OSU Evaluation Administration & Maintenance ◦2 software updates in 6 months ◦30 minutes to install, including code review ◦Marginal time cost of updating additional hosted sites would be 2-3 minutes Support ◦Installation/configuration support eliminated ◦Some hand-holding still required

Future Directions Revisit hosting model ◦Is Heroku working for us? ◦Would Amazon EC2 make more sense? Determine costs based on size and use Consider other partnerships ◦Hand hosting off to consortium?

Library à La Carte in the Cloud: The Movie See it on YouTube!