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2008-01-11	Posted By: Esmond Kane Forge Migration Complete 20080111 The Forge Admin Team have completed the migration to new hardware and gForge Advanced Server 5.41. The team are still working to integrate all of the new functionality but all project components (except for wikis) from the old server are now in place and available for use. Expect some updates and howtos from us soon! The old forge server is still accessible at http://forge0.abcd.harvard.edu. CVS update access has been disabled. Any subsequent changes made to project components on forge0 will be lost when the server is removed from service after the community verifies it is no longer needed. My thanks to Norton Allen, Joquin Avellan, Bart Lawyer and Ron Hawkins who made this all possible. As usual use the contact form below or email abcd-forge@abcd.harvard.edu with any questions.  Discussions
2008-01-07	Posted By: Esmond Kane Forge Upgrade 20080111 After months of extensive testing, we will finalise the migration of the Forge Collaboration server to new hardware and gForge Advanced Server 5.4 (GFAS) this Friday January 11 starting at 7pm. We expect the migration to be complete by 11pm. The old server will remain active for a number of weeks to aid in migrating data. The following steps will need to be performed manually by project members on the new server: 1) Wikis: the old wiki plugin is not compatible with the new wiki engine. Thankfully, you can simply cut and paste your wiki content into the new server. 2) Tasks: forge users with pending tasks will automatically receive an email notification of those tasks unless they sign in and disable the notification. 3) URLs: GFAS5 uses a new hierarchy for content. Deep linking using the old hierarchy will fail and will need to be corrected on the new server. As usual, if you have any questions or concerns, please use the comment/Start New Thread features below or contact an admin (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/plugins/wiki/index.php?How%20can%20I%20get%20help%3F&id=1&type=g)  Discussions
2007-03-13	Posted By: Esmond Kane Unplanned Forge Downtime 20070313 Forge received some objectionable comment spam in the last 48 hours. The server was not compromised. No content was hosted. The server was placed offline temporarily while the spam content was removed. Normal service resumed shortly after 10 this morning.  Discussions
2007-03-06	Posted By: Esmond Kane MS Code Repository and Collaboration I missed it in my November 20006 roundup of Alternate Code Repositories to Forge but Microsoft also launched their version last year. Microsoft CodePlex revolves around Visual Studio integration and the Team Foundation Server repositories and Team Explorer. Their terms of use prohibit non-code based projects. Read more about CodePlex here: http://www.codeplex.com/Default.aspx Read my November Forge post here: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/forum/forum.php?forum_id=107  Discussions
2007-01-24	Posted By: Esmond Kane Downtime Thursday 20070124 8-30am-8:40am We are scheduling 10 minutes of maintenance tomorrow Thursday Jan 25 2007 from 8:30 until 8:40AM. The maintenance will involve some webserver downtime. CVS will still be available during the maintenance window.  Discussions
2007-01-24	Posted By: Esmond Kane The CAIT Presentation and the future of Forge 01/2007 On Tuesday January 23rd, the members of the Forge admin team met with the Harvard Central Administration Information Technology (CAIT) working group. It was a lively forum and we hope clarified the position of Forge in the Harvard Community. The Harvard ABCD Forge is what you make of it! The CAIT group (http://www.cait.harvard.edu/) works to promote technology standardisation and Best Practices across the Harvard Campus. The Forge Admin team presented a slideshow (available here: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/docman/view.php/1/42/The%20CAIT_Forge_Report_20060123.ppt) which summarized the Forge featurelist and emphasized how the Forge "Lifecycle" provides for Project Management Best Practices. The Administration, Communication, Repository and Teamwork aspects to Forge can be toggled on demand as a project grows or as the community and team demand. Projects do not need to use all the aspects of Forge, if fact we encourage participants to actively make Forge your own. Theres no need to reinvent the wheel! Also, we provided a quick summary of the Forge prospects for the coming year: 1) SSL HTTPS activation in the near term 2) Gforge Advanced Server implementation in the Summer of 2007 3) Gforge consultant Summer 2007 4) Ongoing Forge virtualization discussions The Harvard ABCD Forge has outgrown the Open Source product and will migrate to the commecial GForge Advanced Server in the Summer of 2007. Our intent is to expand the offerings of Forge to allow more advanced Project Management features and integration with existing management and IDE deployments (MS Project, Visual Studio, Eclipse). The new features of particular importance to the CAIT group include: A. Project hierarchies B. MS Project and Visual Studio Integration C. Eclipse Plugin D. SVN E. The Project Dashboard F. Improved Statistics All of the above features are available for review on the GForgegroup website (http://gforgegroup.com/es/index.php). As with everything Forge, nothing occurs without your support and participation. We will not implement, upgrade or migrate anything without extensive testing and prior notification to the community. The GFAS upgrade is not due for implementation until the Summer of 2007 and only after extensive testing. As usual, if you have any questions or concerns, please use the comment/Start New Thread features below or contact an admin (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/plugins/wiki/index.php?How%20can%20I%20get%20help%3F&id=1&type=g)  Discussions
2006-08-21	Posted By: Esmond Kane Repository Alternatives 11/2006 The beauty of using Forge is that a number of project facets and tools are already available pre-configured and can be activated or discontinued if or when you need to meet the demand. However, some Harvard institutions prefer to implement internal solutions rather than use Forge. Please see below for a discussion of some turn-key solutions. Some teams like to keep things simply, essentials like CVS and Bugzilla, others require more full featured solutions, Forums, Surveys and Mailing lists. Configuring the security, repository, communication, client and management aspects of any solution is a daunting task. Aside from the collaborative aspects to using Forge, I hope the appeal of Forge as a backup/redundant solution is obvious, however please see below for a brief overview of some alternative Open Source Repository Alternatives to Forge: GForge have their own VMWare "application" available here: http://www.spisser.it/gforge/ Thr Forge admin Team have Centos based "appliance" available on request. We use it for code testing and as a DR solution. Trac is a popular Repository engine. Theres a VMWare "application" which includes Subversion here: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/308 Google launched Google Code recently: http://code.google.com/ SourceForge is a venerable hosting solution available here: http://www.sourceforge.net/ Sourceforge also reentered the in-house arena recently with the SourceForge Enterprise server: http://www.sourceforge.net/powerbar/sfee/ There are many more (i haven't touched on SourceSafe or ClearCase) and I'd love to hear your opinions. Email me directly or use the comments section below. As always, if you want more info or have a specific request, there are multiple ways to contact the site-admins. We have also prepared a user guide and a quick reference FAQ. Please check the Forge wiki to start your search: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/plugins/wiki/index.php?id=1&type=g  Discussions
2006-08-11	Posted By: Esmond Kane Forge Update August 08/2006 The Harvard ABCD Forge Admin Team has secured funding and support for the ABCD Forge Server for a further two years until summer 2008. This guarantee of Forge support and maintainance conveys the Harvard Executive teams commitment to the project and further promotes Code Repository and Project Management Best Practices. To secure the commitment, the Forge Admin Team correlated Usage Statistics and uptake/adoption by the Harvard community into a report available here http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/docman/view.php/1/19/Harvard%20ABCD%20Forge%20Usage%20Report%20Feb%202006.pdf This report was presented to Dan Moriarty, Senior Associate Provost and University Chief Information Officer and the findings were sufficient for Dan to guarantee funding until Summer 2008. As always, if you want more info or have a specific request, there are multiple ways to contact the site-admins. We have also prepared a user guide and a quick reference FAQ. Please check the Forge wiki to start your search: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/plugins/wiki/index.php?id=1&type=g  Discussions
2006-03-29	Posted By: Esmond Kane ABCD-SoftDev Presentation 03/29/2006 The powerpoint presentation Norton Allen gave to the ABCD-SoftDev group on how and why he uses Forge is available here: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/docman/view.php/1/12/ABCD_Forge.ppt From the lively discussion around the table, we have identified a number of action items to aid further adoption: 1) We need more open forums to publicise Forge 2) Can admins or forge-users make themselves available for localised demos for specific departments/groups? 3) We need more Best-Practices, screencasts etc 4) Can we improve the Harvard commitment to Forge? 5) We need Subversion asap To answer some of the above: Personalised introductions to forge (preferably to a group) are possible, given sufficient notice. Please contact an admin (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/plugins/wiki/index.php?How%20can%20I%20get%20help%3F&id=1&type=g) to arrange the details. We will continue to use the ABCD open-forums to introduce Forge concepts and we are actively working on better documentation. We will bubble-up the concerns over the lifespan of the forge project and work on securing a longer commitment. Please be assured that your data is secure and projects are easy to migrate in and out of forge. One of the strengths of the GForge model is that it leverages other mature open-source components and each will support migrating your data. Subversion is subject to some backend process refinement the admin team hopes to accomplish. We have built a virtual-server to use as a forge staging platform. The primary benefit is that we can safely backport features from GForge current and HEAD into the stable Harvard implementation. The build and staging refinement particularly impacts the recent switchover from CVSWeb/SVNWeb to the central ViewCV web interface. I hope to have more finite SVN-related information to post once we have a satisfactory mirror-forge implementation. One user asked if there was Trac-like functionality in Gforge: there are a number of plugins on the horizon (http://gforgegroup.com/products/eclipse-plugin1.png) to emulate the comprehensive feature tie-in that Trac accomplishes. There is a currently a comprehensive SOAP cli interface available (http://gforge.org/docman/view.php/132/116/GForge-cli-documentation.pdf) which can facilitate scripting routine tasks. Finally, another question was to claify what level of configuration/setup is required of individual project components once a forge project is requested: The project components (mailing-lists, forums, SCM, wiki etc) are automatically created and configured, there is only minimal house-keeping required to finalise your project - primarily choosing the tabs you want to make available and assigning roles to your users to meet these tasks. One major benefit in choosing forge is that you can scale these features to match your project growth. Use what you need now and integrate other features when necessary. I hope the above answers some open questions. As always, please provide feedback in the comments section of this post or the Site-Admin forums (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/forum/?group_id=1). Remember Forge is what YOU make of it! Esmond  Discussions
2005-12-23	Posted By: Esmond Kane Forge Update 12/22/05 Please be aware that UIS will be conducting electrical testing at the 60 Oxford St facility on December 28th from 7am to 5pm. No interruption to Forge is anticipated but please allow for a slight delay in communication during the testing period. Keep reading! Lots more news below! We have lots of news to post so please excuse our brevity! As always, please provide feedback in the comments section of this post or the Site Admin Forums (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/forum/?group_id=1). The Forge admin team met last on 11/18/05. New to the meeting was a new Forge volunteer admin Luis Villa (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/users/luis/). Luis intends to give Forge a Crimson theme/skin facelift as well as migrate the h2o project (and others) into Forge. Welcome aboard Luis! Carol Carmicheal in UIS NSS has been kind enough to filter the ABCD/UIS Forge support agreement into a one page doc. It's available for your review under Site Admin Docs (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/docman/view.php/1/9/NSS-ABCDForge_FactSheet.pdf) Please note that the one page doc is only a partial subset of the greater NSS Support offerings (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/docman/view.php/1/4/NSS-ServicePortfolio.pdf). Also new to Forge is a comprehensive FAQ (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/plugins/wiki/index.php?id=1&type=g). Most importantly, the much requested "How can I get help?" aka "How do I contact an Admin?" topic is in there (http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/plugins/wiki/index.php?How%20can%20I%20get%20help%3F&id=1&type=g) Your feedback on the individual FAQ components is especially appreciated! As you can see from the FAQ, Wiki functionality is now live and available for your projects. As usual, Admins can de/select that project function by checking the appropriate section box under "Edit Public Info" in the Admin tab for their projects. If you have any questions, please check the Forge FAQ before contacting the admins. Subversion is live but not yet integrated into the Forge SCM interface. I hope to have time over the Xmas break to complete the SVN/Forge integration. The last 6 weeks have seen 10 new users and 5 new projects in Forge. We hope to siphon the findings of the real-world transitions into a February ABCD-SoftDev presentation, that's if the developers' workload allows for it! We intend to open the debate in January with an ABCD-SoftDev discussion of general Best Practices. Hint: Forge incorporates lots of them! Also on the January horizon is a port of Mark Diggory's excellent ABCD SoftDev wiki into Forge. January will be a busy time for Forge and we highly recommend that if you're interested or even curious about Forge, please attend one of the SoftDev roundtables in January or February. I hope that the above answered some of the open questions. Please remember Forge is what YOU make of it. Enjoy the break!  Discussions
2005-11-15	Posted By: Esmond Kane Forge Admin Meeting 11/18/05 The Forge Admin team will meet this Friday in the Art Museums between 12 and 2 for a "brown bag" lunch. Please email one of the Forge admins (or post in the comments section) if you are interested in attending. Location: Fogg Art Museum back door beside the loading dock construction and opposite the Sackler Museum. You will need to bring Harvard ID and sign in, let security know you're looking for Esmond Kane and I'll come getcha. The IT Conf room holds about 6 people comfortably (just - we have 4 confirmed at the moment). No wireless but I can hard code boxes if you need a net connection. Tentative agenda: Updates/Cleanup: NSS review Service monitoring ABCDForgeSrc review GForge update (4.5.3, StatCVS plugin) Postgres dump job Open Bugs: CVS Pserver/Anon access Forge Stats update New Features: HTTPS cutover Crimson Theme FAQ content (Admin procedures, CVS Migration) Wiki AoB: Wrapup Deliverables and task delegation Thats no more than 45 mins of content so unless we have more to discuss, it should be a quick meeting.  Discussions
2005-11-10	Posted By: Esmond Kane Forge Updates The Forge Admin Team and UIS Support Team met on Nov 9 to finalise the details of the Forge support agreement. The exact details will be forthcoming in the next week or two. The salient discussion points (subject to change/qualification) were: 1) The physical Forge server is housed in the state-of-the-art UIS NOC 2) Forge is backed up nightly using Legato Networker on a Weekly Full and nightly Incremental schedule 3) UIS proactively monitor the hardware and software We hope to have a document available shortly which will go into more detail on the agreement. Following the UIS roundtable, the Forge Admin team met briefly to discuss the topics Forge Users indicated were of vital concern: 1) A FAQ will be up by next week. We hope to rely upon the phpwiki functionality and will use the Front-Page News in the interim. Please continue to provide feedback in the Site Admin Forums or News Comments 2) We are working on a CVS Migration How-To. In essence, it involves creating the project in Forge and providing the Forge Admins with a tarball/archive of the CVS tree. The extracted CVS contents will include your previously committed data and associated metadata. 3) We need to better indicate the Admin Contact info. Again, an FAQ (in a wiki) is forthcoming. The potential also exists for a Crimson theme to include the info in the css footer. 4) We intend to meet next week. If the interest is sufficient, we are open to a public forum. Please let us know what your opinions are; again use the News Comments feature or post in the Site Admin Forums.  Discussions
2005-11-01	Posted By: Esmond Kane Survey : What do you need in Forge? We have drawn up a quick survey to act as an informal needs-assessment. Our hope is to define the immediate concerns of the community and to aid you in migrating your projects to Forge. Please visit the Site-Admin project Survey(s) or click here: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/survey/survey.php?group_id=1&survey_id=2 Surveys are anonymous. If you need more room to voice your comments, please post in the Site-Admin Forums: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/forum/?group_id=1 Thank you! The ABCD Forge Admin Team  Discussions
2005-10-28	Posted By: Esmond Kane Announcing: Harvard ABCD Forge Do you need a central repository for your source code? Bug-tracking, mailing-lists, forums? Simply want to offload file release bandwidth? The ABCD group is proud to announce the launch of the "Harvard ABCD Forge" implementation of GForge http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu GForge is an open source fork of the Sourceforge tools and provides a flexible feature list which includes: CVS Repository Mailing Lists Discussion Forums Bug Tracking Feature Tracking Task delegation Project Management and Reporting Project admins can choose what feature(s) they want to use and disable unnecessary ones. Just want surveys? Forums? Bandwidth for File-Releases? Everything? ABCD Forge is whatever you want to make it. Projects can be either public or private (restricted to selected registered users). Public projects can select a number of licenses to distribute code. Visit http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/ to create your account. All ABCD members are eligible to create projects. Simply select 'Register Project' on log in. http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu is funded by the office of Senior Associate Provost and CIO, Dan Moriarty and is supported by a group of ABCD volunteers. Both ABCD and the Provost's office seek ways to reduce costs by addressing needs that extend beyond department and school boundaries. Our hope is to reduce the local sysadmin effort while raising the quality and frequency of software development at Harvard.  Discussions
2005-10-20	Posted By: Esmond Kane User Guide online Confused by the interface? Don't know where to start? Read the ABCD Forge Users Guide: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/docman/view.php/1/3/ABCD-Forge_User_Guide.pdf  Discussions
2005-10-19	Posted By: Esmond Kane Its Alive! To register a project: 1) Create your user account 2) on your "My Page" tab select Register Project or click here http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/register/  Discussions
2005-08-08	Posted By: Esmond Kane ABCD Presentation Hello and welcome to the Harvard GForge Collaboration server. We have posted the slides from the ABCD presentation here: http://forge.abcd.harvard.edu/docman/?group_id=1 To help in populating and trouble-shooting the server, please use the Site Admin -> Forums and Site Admin -> Tracker interfaces to give us feedback. Thank you for your time!  Discussions
2005-08-03	Posted By: Esmond Kane Gforge 4.5 released Harvard ABCD Forge will soon be transitioning to the recently released Gforge 4.5. More info on the new release is available < ahref="http://gforge.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=185">here</a> Please log in and rate your preference for the new features on our <a href="http://test">survey</a>  Discussions
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The Harvard ABCD Forge is an installation of the GForge project and is supported and maintained by the ABCD Software Developers Group. Funding is provided by the office of the Harvard CIO. Contact the forge-admin team with any questions. Our privacy policy is posted here.