Fedora 4.x to 6.x Migration Guide - Lowering Barriers to Migrations for All

Arran Griffith

Funding Area: Capacity building / Construcción de capacidad

Problem Statement: Fedora is an open source digital repository software used for the management and dissemination of digital content and to support long term digital preservation. The development of an instructional guide for migrating from Fedora 4 to 6 will open migration pathways for users currently stuck in outdated, poorly performing versions of Fedora 4, and bring them forward to the most up-to-date and robust version of the software - Fedora 6.x. This pathway will finalize the last set of migration instructions for all users on outdated versions of Fedora. The guide will include shared best practices so that users can draw from the experiences of others within the community. There are several known issues with Fedora 4 including lack of data transparency, poor performance, and scalability - all of which were hallmarks of previous versions of Fedora and can be resolved with a Fedora 6.x upgrade. The lack of a clearly defined migration pathway puts the stability, security and accessibility of these repositories at risk. While this guide will serve the global Fedora community, the focus of making Fedora 4 to 6 migrations easier is to directly support efforts within the Samvera community to upgrade Hyrax instances to the latest version of Fedora. Previous versions of Hyrax rely on Fedora 4 and the vast majority of users are smaller less resourced institutions. In order to bring users from both communities forward to a supported version of Fedora, we need to ease the effort to migrate.

Proposed Activities: Use Case Information Gathering (3 months) The Fedora Program team will conduct community outreach to identify Fedora implementers who have previously migrated a Fedora 4 repository to Fedora 6 to document their use cases. Information to gather will include: migration stories, gaps in current documentation, additional areas for consideration related to migration efforts. Hold information gathering sessions with users. Collaboratively begin to build documented best practices from users. Build Migration Documentation (3 months) Utilizing Instructional Designer contractor, begin to pull together disparate migration details into an organized and understandable format. Upload content to Fedora wiki. Testing and Iteration (2 months) With the help of community partners and Fedora contract developers, execute testing of documentation and iterate as needed. Supplement documentation with screenshots, demo videos and visual aids as needed. Review and Update (1 month) Instructional Designer and Fedora program team will collaborate with targeted stakeholders from above to review content and capture best practice details to supplement migration documentation. Make any updates as necessary to guide. Identify any remaining gaps in technology needed to ease migration efforts Publish and Share Formalize a public announcement to share the results of the work and collaborate with impacted communities for cross-community posting. Identify key communication channels to announce the completion of the work and create targeted messaging to convey its importance. Collaboration with Samvera Community The Samvera Community has a critical need for this migration guide and would like to see it translated into other languages to better support less resourced institutions within their community. We intend to share the output of this work directly with Samvera so that we can serve a broader, more diverse group of users outside of our Fedora community.

Openness: Fedora is an open source software with over 300 known installations around the world. Fedora’s core code base, migration utilities and all extensions are freely available for download and use from the publicly available Fedora GitHub repository. All of Fedora’s documentation exists in a public-facing wiki space, hosted by Fedora’s organizational home, Lyrasis. The intention of the proposal is to make the migration guide available on the Fedora wiki space, alongside the Fedora 3 to 6 migration toolkit. As mentioned in the Problem Statement above, this guide will serve all Fedora users, but more importantly it is focused on bridging gaps between the Fedora and Samvera communities. The migration guide is a critical missing link that will bring together the two groups of users with shared needs to make migration efforts easier for everyone. We intend to collaborate with the Samvera community to share, discuss and seek feedback on the guide to ensure it meets as many use cases as possible. Broad community adoption can be accomplished through collaborative discussion, presentation on outcomes at conferences, through online forums or by accessing the Fedora and Samvera outreach channels.

Challenges: Gathering Use Cases - With very few known institutions who have completed a Fedora 4 to 6 migration, we anticipate a challenge in trying to identify enough other users who have already completed work of this nature. These users are critical in helping understand how the migration path works, as it exists now, with real world examples. They also have first-hand knowledge of what elements worked and what didn’t so that we can accurately document these gaps and seek ways to fill in the missing pieces. A significant effort from the program team to seek out these users will be required, but the end result will be a more comprehensive and exhaustive review of the migration path so that the resulting migration guide can serve to fill those needs for others. It will also be a great way to bring new engagement opportunities to the Fedora community. Testing - Many institutions are wary of undergoing migration efforts without known results, so finding users willing to participate in testing efforts can pose a challenge. We have seen a noted decrease in community participation at the development level at Fedora, which could pose a delay in getting sufficient testing of the migration guide and associated elements completed.

Neglectedness: To the best of our knowledge, we are not aware of any immediate funding opportunities that would fit the scale and scope of this work. As this need for more clear and concise Fedora 4 to 6 migration documentation has only surfaced recently, we have not applied for funding elsewhere. Lyrasis and Fedora previously received 2 IMLS Grants to aid in lowering migration barriers from Fedora 3 to 6 when Fedora 6 was first released.

Success: We can identify several measures of success to look for: Identification of new/existing Fedora implementers willing to participate - If we are able to identify more institutions who have undergone Fedora 4 to 6 migrations, then we will be able to provide more comprehensive best practices and user stories for the migration guide. This will also bring users closer to the community and encourage future engagement, making the communities stronger and more inclusive. Institutions without extensive developer resources on staff can use the migration guide independently - Seeing the migration guide “in action” will validate that it is needed and as user-friendly as intended. Seeing more support questions in communication channels within the communities will indicate uptake of the content and serve as a feedback loop for iterations and updates if needed. Samvera Community feedback - Once the guide is complete and if the Samvera community is successful in mutli-lingual translation, seeing feedback from within the Samvera community will indicate adoption of the migration guide and ultimately of Fedora 6.x.

Total Budget: $13,375

Affiliations: Fedora and Lyrasis - Lyrasis serves as the organizational home for Fedora offering operational and administrative support to the program, however Fedora continues to operate as an independent, community-led program governed by it’s own elected members.

LMIE Carveout: Being a global community of users, Fedora’s users come from a diverse and wide range of economic backgrounds and locations. The goal of this grant work is to make migrations accessible to all users, regardless of economic or technical resources. However, this instructional guide will be especially critical for users from smaller, less resourced institutions from typically LMIE geographic areas who cannot afford to independently undertake the migration work. We have identified a large contingent of Hyrax users who currently rely on Fedora 4 who come from identified institutions in lower or middle income economies for whom this work would prove essential to the long-term functionality of their current repositories.

Team Skills: The project team involved will be comprised of; a vetted Instructional Design Contractor, Fedora program developers (as required), the Fedora program manager, and volunteer community members who have vested interest in participating in testing. The instructional designer will bring expertise in creating technical documentation for a wide range of users. Experience with open source library technology will be an asset to helping understand how the users will consume the information and how to structure and organize the content for ease of use. The Fedora developer team will be critical for the testing components of this work. Each developer is well versed in the Fedora core code along with repository technologies in general. They also have a strong understanding of community development practices to ensure the guide is accessible to the types of users who will be using it. Having been involved heavily in the development of the Migration Toolkit, a grant deliverable from the IMLS grant-funded “Fedora Migration Path & Tools: A Pilot Project” work, the Fedora Program Manager brings a wealth of experience with similar work. Along with a deep understanding of the Fedora community, she handles outreach, engagement and relationship building through daily interactions with community members so will be able to draw on these skills to identify and engage potential implementers to gather use cases.

How Did You Hear About This Call: Word of mouth (e.g. conversations and emails from IOI staff, friends, colleagues, etc.) / Boca a boca (por ejemplo, conversaciones y correos electrónicos del personal del IOI, amigos, colegas, etc.)

Submission Number: 113