2.5 Release Planning-21 (20080221)

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Last updated: Dec 17, 2021 by Wilma HodgesVersion comment
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ACTION ITEMS!!!!

dynamictasklist: task list macros declared inside wiki-markup macros are not supported

Attendees

If you know you will be attending, please list your name

  • Megan May (Meeting facilitator)
  • Peter Knoop (Sakai project coordinator & regular attendee)
  • James Logan (regular attendee)
  • Renu  (regular attendee)
  • David Haines (regular attendee)
  • David Horwitz_(regular attendee)_
  • Linda Place (regular attendee)
  • Anthony Whyte (Sakai community liason)
  • Jean-François Lévêque
  • John F. Hall
  • Charlie Shelton
  • Seth Theriault (semi-regular attendee)
  • Ian Boston
  • Jim Eng
  • Cheryl Johns (curious on-looker and hopeful 2.5 adopter for summer)
  • Beth Kirschner

Meeting Agenda

Background on Discussion Points

 Update From Cape Town

Content Conversion For Documentation

Moving from 2.4 to 2.5 requires adding several columns to the database tables used by the Content Hosting Service (the service used by the Resources tool, Dropbox, filepicker and webDav).  The conversion scripts contain DDL statements to accomplish those changes. The new columns enable a switch from XML serialization to "binary-entity" serialization, which is faster and requires less memory.  They also enable improved performance of quota calculations.  A conversion utility is provided in 2.5.x to insert values in these new columns.  You can get the benefits of binary-entity serialization without running the conversion utility, but you will never get the quota-calculation improvements without doing the full conversion.  For clarify, this utility is separate from the conversion script. 

Points

The conversion utility in 2.5.x was fully tested for MySQL. Cambridge migrated data using the conversion utility configured for MySQL.  UCT has *not*
Oracle utility should be worked out by midmarch. 
No testing of utility on QA servers?
If any Oracle users are interested moving to 2.5.0 before the changes are committed to 2.5.x, please contact Jim Eng for information about using the conversion utility that will be in post-2.4.

The Jiras related to this, such as

The conversion scripts for content provide SQL to add the new columns needed for binary-entity serialization and the new quota query.
Those are enough to get 2.5 running, but before getting full advantage of the quota query, the conversion utility must be run.
The order for doing this would be:

1) run the conversion script to add the new columns
2) start up sakai 2.5
3) run the conversion utility

When the conversion completes, sakai 2.5 will automatically start using the new code.

We have done a lot of tuning of the SQL in the oracle conversion. Ian said the Oracle conversion was tested on small sample data.  We found severe performance issues when trying to run it against copies of our production database (~6 million records in the three tables). Our Oracle DBA suggested a number of improvements to the SQL used in the conversion. Those improvements are in a branch that has not been merged back to 2.5.x or trunk.

Review of Accessibility bugs.

Mike Elledge, the lead of the accessibility wg, was asked to rate the top 5 accessibility bugs so we can work to get these addressed in the 2.5.x branch (and hopefully a maintenance release).  The top contenders are:  

  • SAK-11679 Accessibility: Inaccessible dialogue box content (Wiki)
  • SAK-11665 Accessibility: "Add" and "Actions" rollovers not recognized as combo boxes (drop down lists) by screen reader (Resources)
  • SAK-11426 Accessibility: Tab Order and Functionality problems (Resources)
  • SAK-2773 Accessibility: Accesskey for worksites lands on "Logout" button (Global)
  • SAK-8233 Accessibility: Retain focus after changing tab location in Preferences > Customize Tabs

We also need to do something about the FCK Editor, either make it accessible or offer TinyMCE as an alternative (SAK-11783 Accessibility: Multiple accessibility problems with FCK editor). That's the biggest accessibility issue we face at present, but it seems like it is out of scope for this. Of course, I would be thrilled to find out that I'm wrong.

Release Status

  • Time line Review - Beta2 tag cut on 9th.  RC1 should be cut and deployed by the time this meeting is held
  • Progress -
    • There are over 70 bug fixes going in from beta to beta2.  We were  down to 47 awaiting verification last week.  This week there are 39 awaiting verification
    • We're seen a lot of progress in the list awaiting verification.
    • % Bugs Verified

    • Date

      • Awaiting Verification

      # Verified

      %

      1/11/2008

      453

      720

      ~61%

      1/30/2008

      405

      773

      ~66%

      2/14/2008

      431

      799

      ~65%

      2/20/2008

      415

      812

      ~66%

  • Areas to focus on - http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/jira/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?mode=hide&requestId=11510

JSR-170 in 2.5

Summary of rationale for inclusion:   The technical merits of the proposal to merge in JSR-170 into 2.5.x were not a factor in the concerns that were raised.  Much of the discussion rose around violating our current processes (ie breaking code freeze) and the desire that changes to this process should be made in the future.  Given that the there is strong support from the development team, test plans to ensure that adverse effects are not felt, community willingness to assume the risk, community support to exercise the (experimental) code in production, and that this leverages our resources is the best way possible, that the recommendation is that these changes should be merged into 2.5.x after the beta2 tag has been cut. Rest assured, release process refinement will occur.

Testing Plan 

Steve Gitehns put up a to make sure that jackrabbit is really disabled and not doing anything. It will have to be run by someone with read access to the servers file system, logs, and database. The test plan for the JackRabbitService on the Test Plan/Scripts page on the attachments tab:

http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/QA/Test+Conditions+and+Scripts

In addition to compile time unit tests, Steve also wrote a small validation test that can be run against a live server to make sure it really is disabled with our deployment configurations.  There are 3 versions of it:

- A Jython script for Sash using the standard python unittest module.
(Obviously no one can run this until I get off my arse and tag another version of sash).
https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/jcr/disabled-jackrabbitservice-tests/JackRabbitServiceTest.py

- A Standard Sakai JWS WebService and Client that can just be dropped in.  At the moment this is probably the only thing that doesn't require installing extra stuff on the QA servers.  This is not a real JUnit check, but just checks the 5 conditions manually and reports with a human readable string.
WS:
https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/jcr/disabled-jackrabbitservice-tests/DisabledJackRabbitServiceTest.jws
Client:
https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/jcr/disabled-jackrabbitservice-tests/JwsDisabledJackRabbitServiceTestClient.py

- A TestRunner test with a real JUnit test.  (Depends on having the testrunner installed, although you can the test without the GUI, again I need to get off my behind and finish polishing up the half finished GUI for it).
https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/jcr/disabled-jackrabbitservice-tests/DisabledJackRabbitServiceTestRunner/

So far we're only testing that JackRabbit is disabled, will be adding some tests to make sure it's enabled and working as we go forward.  (smile)

Testing/Resources Needed

  1. Those  read access to the servers file system, logs, and database to run through manual verification (Megan can do this but would like for this to be done by others. )
  2. Someone to run validation test against live server

UPDATE:  Manual and WS test run @Gtech.

Overview of Time lines & Goals  (Standing item)

Timeline Review
  • Nov 7 tag 2.5.0.012
  • Nov 22 2.5.0.beta cut
  • Nov 26 2.5.0.beta deployed to QA network
  • January 9th 2.5.0.beta2 cut
  • January 10th deployed to QA network
  • Week of Jan 28th - RC1 cut
Goals
  • Elimination of all outstanding Blocker and Critical bugs for 2.5
  • Acceptable Performance testing on mysql and oracle databases for Assignments, Resources, Forums, GB & T&Q. What is acceptable? At this point in time, no degradation from performance experienced in 2.4
  • High degree of verification (85%) of resolved JIRA bugs
  • Confirmed functional testing on all tools.
  • Positive feedback from sites running a tagged version of off branch.

Stats on Issues Reported 

Progression

Q: How do we move from Beta? RC?
A: To make the progression from beta to release candidate, the aim is the resolution of outstanding blocker and critical bugs reported.

Q: Are we going to make the move from Beta to RC?
There are a number of critical issues reported against a 2.5 build we're not likely to get movement on due to resources being unavailable. What do we do with these problems?

A:  Some of them will be resolved in the next release or later in the maintenance branch.  These items should have a target version set and include comments in the rationale as to why they can't be resolved now.

Meeting Notes

Updates

David Horwitz:
Stable except one Sak that is hitting us at night time, that is hitting the cluster. The student summary page of section info is generating a ton of database queries. One Authz query is repeated six times for every group.

The one search blocker has been fixed and is in the RC1 tag. Fixes the shared segments that went missing and performance fix on merging the segments. Putting in a full production test of this on Sunday.

Beth: Any issue with people using the email digest feature? SAK-13052 - Getting issue details... STATUS
David: No, but mostly just the Announcement emails had a few formatting issues. A few issues with some clients like GroupWise. SAK-12004 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Renu: Closed about 5 issues.

Missed a minute of chatting about a few issues

SAK-13677 - Getting issue details... STATUS ?: Timezone settings. Need a test server we can use to test some daylight savings time stuff, because our server is tied up.

Action Item for Megan: Look for a QA server that can be volunteered to test this timezone stuff.

Haines: Hoping to run the content conversion in production next week.

Linda: Put up the results from our test on the resources.

Anthony not on call. On his way to South Africa. We are very close to the release documentation. 3 blocker issues created to make these artifacts. Working with Ian on the artifact creation.

Open Critical Blocker Issues

SAK-13052 - Getting issue details... STATUS : Looks like the same as Dave's Announcement issue.

SAK-13043 - Getting issue details... STATUS , SAK-13042 - Getting issue details... STATUS , SAK-13041 - Getting issue details... STATUS : Artefact creations assigned to Anthony

SAK-13021 - Getting issue details... STATUS : talked about earlier

SAK-12820 - Getting issue details... STATUS : 2.5.1 release

SAK-12754 - Getting issue details... STATUS : no resolution date yet

SAK-12004 - Getting issue details... STATUS : discussed earlier, 2.5.1 target

SAK-11875 - Getting issue details... STATUS : work still going on with this 2.5.x

SAK-11798 - Getting issue details... STATUS : 2.5.x

SAK-11783 - Getting issue details... STATUS : Should be a task. Resolution is to use a different editor, addressed in future release

SAK-11636 - Getting issue details... STATUS : In progress, 2.5.x

SAK-11628 - Getting issue details... STATUS : 2.5.x

SAK-11411 - Getting issue details... STATUS : Skip, not in distribution

SAK-11199 - Getting issue details... STATUS : 2.5.1

SAK-11098 - Getting issue details... STATUS : Stephen working with Stanford. Probably not ready for 2.5.0

SAK-7670 - Getting issue details... STATUS : Temporary fix will be in next tag before real problem can be addressed.

SAK-7637 - Getting issue details... STATUS : Similar. 2.5.x fix, by default not included. Will require some extensive work for the main page.

Release Date

Peter sent out an email. Week of March 3rd will be likely release. Verifying that search is ready to go.

Other issues or questions?

Cheryl: Sitting here playing will poll tool, and am seeing weird errors. This is provisional right? Errors with strings getting cut off, out of bounds errors. OOTB.

David: Will look at right away.

Q: Is the drop box flag a 24 hour thing? What's the behaviour.
A: Might depend on the view.

Could be a hassle for an instructor with hundreds of people if the emails aren't automatic.

Thanks for coming.