Aleph Direct for IDS Lucerne folie Zentral- und Hochschulbibliothek Luzern First experience IGELU Berlin september 8, 2013.

Aleph Direct for IDS Lucerne

folie

Zentral- und Hochschulbibliothek Luzern

www.zhbluzern.ch homepage

Firstexperience

IGELU Berlin september 8, 2013

Aleph Direct

folie



• Aleph-Installation hosted by Exlibris• System-Level maintenance by Exlibris

(Backup, Oracle etc.)• Application-Level (Aleph-System-

Administration) by the customer

First Experience: The short version

folie



• It works very well(better than expected ;-)

• Communication good (but could sometimes have been a little bit clearer/faster)

http://www.google.ch/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=ok&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=4iV603ZaxKErDM&tbnid=f2KtMNtL1IjckM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://de.freepik.com/vektoren-kostenlos/ok-symbol_516265.htm&ei=qtkIUtX6GMPKOdusgPAK&bvm=bv.50500085,d.ZG4&psig=AFQjCNEJr1f-FSq0bfvqz-A_KJKuOEDh2w&ust=1376398081619032

And now some details

folie



• Who are we?• Where did we start ?• Why ‚Aleph Direct‘ ?• Chronology• Daily business questions/aspects

ZHB Luzern / IDS Lucerne• ZHB: Zentral- und Hochschulbibliothek:

(Central and University Library of Lucerne)(Main library the local library network IDS Lucerne)

• IDS Luzern: Information Network of German Speaking Switzerland, local network Lucerne (25 libraries, university, university of applied sciences, university of teacher education, special libraries)

• Part of the national ‘IDS’ (Informationsverbund Deutschschweiz)

• Staff IDS Lucerne : ca. 150 people• 1.2 Million Bib, 1.6 Million Items• Circulation: 500’000 p year • Aleph since 1999• Licenses: 58 staff / 45 WWW fo

lie



http://www.informationsverbund.ch/typo3temp/pics/414da66d42.gif

IDS - Information Network of German Speaking Switzerland

folie



http://www.informationsverbund.ch/typo3temp/pics/414da66d42.gif

ZHB Luzern / IDS Lucerne• Aleph since 1999 • Aleph server locally installed 1998-2013

(Sun / Solaris)Sun E450: 1998-2005 (Aleph V11 – V14)Sun Fire V440: 2005-2013 (Aleph V16 – V20)

• System-Knowhow not too big; external support for Oracle-Issues, Backup-Architecture a.s.o.

• Very stable, almost never problems on system level, but system becoming slow

• We were planning to install new Linux-Server for 2013 (V21) fo

lie



Other Ex Libris products• SFX (common installation in IDS)• Metalib (common installation in IDS, ended in

2013)• Metalib+ for IDS Lucerne

= Primo Central Hosted installation since 2012(first steps with Primo)

folie



Offers Ex Libris 2012• Offer for Primo hosted• Offer for Aleph hosted (‘Aleph Direct’)

(better price than earlier offers...)

• Being interested in a) Discovery-Tool and b) Solution for Aleph-Hosting 2013ffwe decided to go for this package (Aleph Direct + Primo Direct)

• In the future, we probably all will have cloud computing why not start already? fo

lie



Ex Libris Services (contract)2.1. Aleph Direct

Aleph Direct is an application hosting package. The application is hosted on hardware owned by Ex Libris at a central data center. Ex Libris maintains ownership and responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of the application, including installation of software updates and upgrades.

The User is responsible for maintaining the connectivity (with acceptable bandwidth) of the workstations and end users to the main Internet, including network connectivity to the application, and connectivity between the application and the User’s local applications interacting with the application, as well as creating and maintaining firewall definitions and opening required ports that permit access to the application.

(a) Hosting implementation services provided by Ex Libris include:

1. Production hardware platform

2. Hardware maintenance

3. 24 x 7 professional operators

4. Centralized backup facilities

5. Redundant environmental systems (power, cooling, and humidity)

6. Robust UPS facilities

7. Diesel power generators (independent power plant)

8. No fewer than 3 ISPs providing OC3-level bandwidth to the facility with load balancing

9. Redundant routers

10. Backup tapes are stored at the data center, with separate offsite long-term retention.

(b) Hosting ongoing services provided by Ex Libris include:

1. Disk backups to tape

2. Offsite storage of backup tapes

3. Server monitoring

4. Hardware system upgrades, patches, and maintenance

5. Operating system upgrades, patches, and maintenance

6. System security

7. Application availability

(c) Aleph Direct ongoing services provided by Ex Libris include:

1. Ongoing service pack implementation.

2. Ongoing version upgrades.

folie



Ex Libris Services (contract)EXHIBIT D : HOSTED ENVIRONMENT SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT

1. Availability

For the duration of the Agreement, Ex Libris will use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that the Programs are available for access and use in accordance with the Agreement (the "Service") at an annual Uptime Percentage (defined below) of at least 99.5%, as measured over any calendar year. Upon request, Ex Libris shall provide the User with a report of any Downtime during a calendar quarter (the "Quarterly Report").

2. Definitions

"Scheduled Downtime" means any shutdown of the Service for repairs and/or maintenance including installing any updates, new releases and upgrades during a Measured Period. Ex Libris will use its reasonable efforts to provide the User with at least seven (7) days notice in advance of any Scheduled Downtime. Ex Libris will use commercially reasonable efforts to (i) ensure that the Scheduled Downtime falls between the hours of Saturday 20:00 and Sunday 06:00 CET; and (ii) minimize Scheduled Downtime.

3. SLA Exclusions

4. Low Uptime Percentage

5. Support Incidents

6. 24x7 Monitoring

The Ex Libris hub team provides 24x7 coverage for the Service by monitoring and alerting on any issues or problems with:

- servers

- operating systems

- network devices (switches/routers)

- backup systems

- server side performance folie



Chronology• November 2012: Idea ‘Aleph Hosting’• December 2012ff: Offer Ex Libris, negociations• March 2013: Contract• April 2013: Planning• Mai 2013, Week 21/22: Installation Server (EXL)• June 2013, Week 23/24: Upgrade Express (EXL –

Lucerne)• June 2013, Week 25/26: User Tests on V21 (Lucerne)• July 2013, Week 27/28: Service Pack, Last Details

(Lucerne) folie



Chronology ff• 14./15. July 2013: Switch to production• August 2013: Installation Testserver (=copy of

production)

folie



3 stepsa) Version 20 to Version 21

b) Solaris to Linux

c) Local installation to external installation

folie



Issues for us (I)• Where is our server?

• Our restrictions: Server can be abroad, but it must be Europe; certainly not US.

• Ex Libris works with www.equinix.de (Computer/Data center worldwide, our installation in Amsterdam) ok fo

lie



http://www.equinix.de/

Issues for us (II)• circulation

performance

(distance to server 900 km instead of 20m or 1 km)

Till now we are happy with performance and connection! fo

lie



http://www.google.ch/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=amsterdam&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=8Wy4cD8QnELrTM&tbnid=V8Q-2ks3lzm0EM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://www.animaatjes.de/bilder/amsterdam/&ei=kO8HUvyxKInnOc_tgbgC&bvm=bv.50500085,d.bGE&psig=AFQjCNF8v8QjPi2ADTHn26KCKMmEHORC9A&ust=1376338110928038

http://www.google.ch/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=luzern+wasserturm&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=H_Jteb2svvVw0M&tbnid=4K8N4moFjhMIWM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://www.ricardo.ch/kaufen/sammeln-und-seltenes/ansichtskarten-schweiz/luzern/gelaufen/ak-luzern-wasserturm-pilatus-1972/v/an661559180/&ei=4fcIUqLWBMOYO5iagYgO&bvm=bv.50500085,d.ZG4&psig=AFQjCNH--Yt3fkEO6y7kg-z7-zOAfSm_YQ&ust=1376405737775006

Issues for us (III)• Cooperation too complicated? it works well (daily work like in the past)

• For example: GUI-Access only open for registered IP-Adresses? GUI-Access no restrictions (just restrictions you want to handle in server_ip_allowed) Restrictions only for SSH/SFTP (just registered IP-Adresses), which is reasonable

folie



Issues for us (IV)• Loss of autonomy (some local programs/interfaces

not allowed/not possible??)

Until now, everything works fine, e.g.- Dirlist (Pearl) (Tool for web based access to parameter tables) - SAP-Interface (PL SQL)

(we do not have a lot of local specialities)

folie



Issues for us (V)• Access rights?

Standard Aleph-User (aleph/oracle/sql) + sudo-rights where needed

aleph@dc03kg0257eu(a21_1) ILU01> sudo –lMatching Defaults entries for aleph on this host: !lecture, tty_tickets, !fqdnUser aleph may run the following commands on this host: (root) NOPASSWD: /exlibris/aleph/u21_1/alephe/apache/bin/

• Until now, we are ok with sudo rights – when we need more, we can talk to Exlibris fo

lie



Issues for us (VI)• Exlibris to be stingy with Disk-Space?

Until now no problems, enough space for temporary needs

• aleph@dc03kg0257eu(a21_1) ILU50> df –hFilesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on(fs1) 28G 6.3G 20G 24% /(fs2) 3.9G 1.5G 2.5G 37% /dev/shm/dev/vda1 (fs3) 194M 53M 131M 29% /boot(fs4) 310G 210G 101G 68% /exlibris

folie



Issues for us (VII)• Can we work on the SQL-Level as we did the last 14 years? (f.ex.

Global updates in Z30)

Lucerne: Do we have the same rights to work on sql?Ex Libris: Select ok, Update forbidden (for all Aleph-Installations: local or hosted)

Lucerne: But we are used to update data on sql-level!Ex Libris: You will have same users/access-Rights in the hosted version as before, so you can work in the same way. fo

lie



People concerned• Exlibris (Germany):

- 1 project manager- 1 technical consultant- 1 Implementation Consultant- ‘cloud team’

• Lucerne:- 1 project manager- 1 system librarian

folie



who did what• Exlibris:

- Initial installation V21- Installation u-tree- [Initial export/import Oracle] by ourselves- Upgrade-Express (UPX) steps <1000 (parameters)

• Lucerne:- Adapting parameter tables- 2 x Export/Import of Oracle and UPX step > 1000 (oracle tables) - Service Pack 2 weeks prior to STP - Final Export/Import Oracle + UPX step > 1000 fo

lie



Special problems• STP planned to be done by ourselves

(out of office hours!)Saturday 13.7.13 17:00 toSunday 14.7.13 17:00

• Starting with unexpected problem:imprudent killing a first launch of the Oracle-Export-script (it was not launched in the background) caused an Oracle Error and blocked the export needed Exlibris support 7x24hub in IsraelSupport was very very good, problem solved in the early morning

folie



http://blog-en.coaching-go.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/OK1.jpg

Communication during project

• In general good and uncomplicate• But could sometimes be improved:

- communication of some important parameters/informations took a long time- Some technical questions needed (too) many mails

• One explanation/reason: vacation period (june/july)

folie



Backup

• Exlibris offers 7x24 service (no down time for Backup)

• We decided to have a shutdown/restart once a week

crontab aleph-user:05 01 * * 0 /exlibris/aleph/u21_1/alephe/aleph_shutdown18 01 * * 0 /exlibris/aleph/u21_1/alephe/aleph_startup

folie



MonitoringThere are server level checks, that are not related to the product:1. Disk space2. CPU3. Load4. Ping There are app level checks:1. Search in the Aleph2. Oracle health checks3. J-Boss (For interoperability with Primo) In general, the checks are done every minute and create a critical alert if there is a sequence of 3 failed checks. But this can change, according to the level of false alerts we get and load on the monitoring system. If the customer wants to take down its Aleph, they need to let us know in advance so that we shut down the monitoring. Otherwise we will think that they are down and will try to restart their Aleph, which can ruin any work they are doing

folie



Only after 30 Minutes!(which is for us reasonable and ok)(SI 16384-453012)

List [email protected]

Mon, 6 May 2013

Hello All –

IGELU-ELUNA-HOSTED-L is an unmoderated discussion list for users of Ex Libris’ Cloud Services. It is a way for users to share alerts and information specifically about that service, such as questions about connectivity or response problems. It’s an extremely low-traffic list. The only messages are generally the rare “Our catalog (or any other product) seems to be off line, is anyone else having that issue” posting. Discussions of specific Ex Libris products should be posted to the appropriate lists, such as Voyager-L or Aleph500-Discuss-L.

http://el-una.org/mailing-lists/all-products-mailing-lists/#elunahosted folie



Thank you

folie



Further informations

Philipp MartiHead IT ZHB [email protected]

september 8, 2013

mailto:[email protected]

Aleph Direct for IDS Lucerne folie Zentral- und Hochschulbibliothek Luzern First experience IGELU Berlin september 8, 2013.

Documents

aleph direct aleph direct

zhb luzern ids lucerne

aleph server

zhb luzern ids lucerne

applicationlevel alephsystem

p year aleph

aleph v11 v14

customer slide