Reliability Focus Area

Project L13

SHRP 2 Technical Coordinating Committee

for Reliability Research Meeting

Irvine, California

April 08, 2010

Zongwei Tao, Principal Investigator

Feasibility of an Archive for Reliability and Related Data

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Topics

Project L13 Accomplishments

Demonstration of Prototype

Findings and Recommendations

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L13 Completed Ahead of Schedule and On Budget

Project initiated in Oct 2008

Reported progress in April 2009 to Reliability TCC

Project extended 12 months with additional $75,000 to develop a prototype – commenced Sept 2009

Delivered preliminary draft final report in Nov 2009

Completed prototype early Jan 2010

Draft final report submitted March 2010 – six months ahead of plan

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L13 Yields Meaningful Outcomes Suited for Implementation

Established conclusively that the recommended approach based upon a digital repository management system with a flexible metadata management scheme, combined with cloud storage, is highly feasible

We were able to assemble a prototype system exclusively from no-cost, open source software that approximates the expected user experience of a real-world system

Provides a broadly applicable reference model for how the intellectual capital embodied in transportation research programs can be preserved and made accessible

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L13 – A Project with Broad Implications

Study to determine feasibility of building a long-lived archive to preserve Reliability Focus area project data

► “in the range of 20 to 50 years”

► “to allow others to validate the research results”

► to make the data “available for researchers in the future to refine and build on the research results”

Has a material impact on how all Reliability project data and findings can become useful “products”

SHRP 1 experience illustrates the importance of preservation planning

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Users Servedby the Archival System

Researchers and Analysts

Interested in verifying research results and building new research programs

Need to find raw data and research methodologies

Non-Transportation Professionals

Interested in end products on operational strategies

Need to quickly find project conclusions, results and strategies

Transportation Technical Staff

Interested in applying end products to daily operations

Need to quickly find end products based on roles and responsibilities

Transportation Leaders

Interested in small, critical data set for business decisions

Need to quickly find project conclusions

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Administration

Preservation Planning

Ingest

DataManagement

Access

ArchivalStorage

Web Content Management Service

Data Extraction and Transformation Service

User Management Service

Rights Management Service

Content/Metadata Indexing and Query Service

Structured navigation through SHRP 2 project

context and content

Faceted search and filtering

On-the-fly data sub-setting and download

Appraisal and Classification

Practitioner and Research Community Portal

ConsumersProducers Open Archival Information System

• Preservation Best Practices

• Standards• Format

Transformation

Research Program Teams

Findings Leadto Conceptual Design

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Prototype

In a relatively short time the Weris team assembled a prototype system exclusively from no-cost, open source software that approximates the expected user experience of a real-world system

We were able to deploy the system on a completely virtualized environment using readily available commercial cloud computing services

We demonstrated that this approach minimizes up-front cost and risk

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Collaborative Process with L03

1

Conduct

1st Call with L03

2

Receive L03 Data

Plans and

Sample Data

3

Identify a Set of

L03 Data

for Prototype

4

Prepare

Metadata Guidelines

5

Conduct

2nd Call with L03

6

Receive

Requested Data

7

Review Received

Data

8

Catalog and Ingest

into the prototypeAcceptable?No Yes

Provided L03 with the scope

and general requirements for

the prototype

Provided L03 with the list of

digital objects to be used in

prototype, metadata guiltiness,

and examples

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Prototype Software “Stack”

Apache Tomcat Lucene MySQL

Fedora GSearch

Java XML PHP

Linux

Drupal Islandora OpenWMS

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Prototype Features & Functions

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Findings and Conclusions

We believe that we have established that it is highly feasible for the SHRP 2 program to cost-effectively deploy a data archival system that meets all of the goals and objectives envisioned by its major stakeholders

We recommend that the SHRP 2 program proceed with the L13a Reliability archive project as planned, following the L13 approach

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Critical Success Factor 1 for L13a and L16

Independent COTS Evaluation

COTS proposed for L13a should be evaluated independently

COTS evaluation will take time

Evaluation time must be built in to the procurement process

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Critical Success Factor 2 for L13a and L16

Set Standards Early

Decisions on standards and practices are independent of any COTS to be implemented

Standards must be set well in advance of system implementation

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Critical Success Factor 3 for L13a and L16

Knowledge Preservation

Institutional knowledge about a project deteriorates with time

Preparation for preserving intellectual content of research projects must start during early stages of the projects’ lifecycle

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Critical Success Factor 4 for L13a and L16

Provide Education

Project contractors must be educated on the archiving preparation process

Archiving preparation needs to be actively managed

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Critical Success Factor 5 for L13a and L16

Program Management

The critical program management role will encompass the systematic management of

- contractor engagement and education

- content preparation and submission

- software procurement

- system development and deployment

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Acknowledgements

SHRP 2 Program Director

Senior Program Officers of Reliability, Capacity, Renewal and Safety

Contractors of L01, L02, L03, L04, L06, L07, L10, L11, L12, and L14

Contractors of C01, C04, C05

FHWA LTPP Team and other staff

Reliability TCC and L13 Subcommittee