Link to ALA Infrastructure Implementation document

[RobinaSanderson]

As a person wanting to implement ALA infrastructure I want to find documentation and contact details So that I can begin implementation

Requirements:

• Need to include link to the ALA Infrastructure Implementation .pdf on the page: http://www.ala.org.au/how-to-use-ala/

.pdf can be found on the confluence page: https://confluence.csiro.au/display/ALASD/Feedback+on+refresh See feedback item 17

[RobinaSanderson]

I think this probably need it's own heading as i don't think it fits well with any of the existing headings. I've lifted the following explanatory text from the document:

The ALA hopes to grow and develop a global community of expertise and capacity to maintain the infrastructure code base and to be able to assist others in implementing it. In general, the following principles hold true in respect to new installations: • People wanting to implement or use the software suite working collaboratively with people who have already implemented it and understand it achieves optimum results for everyone and sets up a constructive working relationship for the future. • New collaborators have content, data, metadata, expectations for styling and user interaction, language encoding, etc. relevant to their requirements which only they can provide. • The ALA (and an increasing global community) has the architecture and systems knowledge to assist with constructing the system and teach new collaborators how best to use, manage and maintain it.

Action button: Find out more about implementing ALA infrastructure

Link the button to the .pdf

[aatteia]

This seems like a fairly important piece of information, and as such would give it it's own page. A page under the primary navigation label 'Participate' called 'How to Implement ALA Infrastructure' seems like a good fit.

[aatteia]

Here is a draft of the page I have in mind (noting that this is just the first cut): http://www.ala.org.au/?page_id=38171&preview=true

[matthewandrews]

I would suggest starting with a general description of the open source project, where else it has been used in the world, with links to other sites e.g. www.ala.org.au/blogs-news/ala-exports/ and some kind of call-to-action contact point (maybe that's also in the PDF).

[RobinaSanderson]

Suggestion from Stephanie: Develop with the ALA ALA architecture Overview of ALA infrastructure implementation (see text below for the page) Web service API List of the ALA's web services ALA Github repository ALA open source code at Github

Then on the page ALA infrastructure can be also thought of as an infrastructure that supports a number of different systems – whether they be separate instances, installations or implementations of the ALA software suite, or hubs that are different interfaces over one common instance of the data infrastructure, providing thematically filtered subsetted views of the data. Also the use of web services or open APIs means that others can independently access data and some data processing services.

The following diagram (add the picture from the document)is a simplistic stylized illustration of this concept

Figure– ALA instances, hubs and web services

The following document provides more detail on the ALA architecture, its components, where the infrastructure has been reused [ add link to document]

Data types Most of the ALA software suite is designed around species names, taxonomy, occurrence based data and related data types. However the ability to support other relevant data types and more effective ways to spatially and temporally represent different data types, presence/absence, etc. are also being explored. Standards The ALA infrastructure applies international data standards as much as possible and wherever appropriate. These include Darwin Core (DwC), Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), Dublin Core, ISO, OGC, and others. The ALA is also an active participant in the further development, maintenance and implementation of relevant international standards. Architecture Architecturally, the ALA is an integrated/federated web application comprising a suite of somewhat modular tools and components linked together via a micro-services architecture. Each component conforms to the following basic principles: • Each component is designed to perform a particular specialised job and, with the exception of integrated service components and plugins, they comprise a database, a server-side application layer and a client-side interface layer. • Some components provide user/client-facing tools and functionality, whilst others support Administrator level configuration and management of the core system and databases. • All of the components are co-dependent in some way (i.e. none of them can stand alone and function effectively as a complete tool in their own right). Some of them are required as a foundational core for all externally-facing tools and some tools are “non-core”. ANNEX 1 provides an overview of each component. • The components interact with each other mostly via web service APIs and there is also a number of plug-in components which can be re-used in different apps. This architecture allows for relatively easy component-based maintenance, as well as the ability to assemble components in different combinations for different purposes or communities. • Web service APIs can also be exposed publicly, allowing external parties to access data and some application services. • Both the main ALA software suite and the BioCollect data collection software support the concept of “hubs” – different interfaces over the same back-end. This allows a single instance of the software to support different thematically constrained interfaces which serve different communities • The core set of foundation components have been compiled for relatively easy ansible-script-based deployment. Installation scripts and instructions can be found at https://github.com/AtlasOfLivingAustralia/ala-install. • Other non-core components can be added as needed.

Open Source All of the tools and components which have been developed by the ALA are free open source software and, where existing available tools, databases, development frameworks, script libraries, etc. are used, open source platforms are preferentially chosen over proprietary platforms as much as possible. This minimises running costs as licensing is zero or negligible and potential complications with IP can be avoided. The ALA team is keen to encourage global collaboration and the development of a community of practice and expertise around this software as countries and organisations adopt it. As such, any new installations and further development is strongly encouraged to be done in the true spirit of open source practice - ie. By pull-request/commit from/to the ALA github repository, rather than by forking and independent installation/development.

Examples of ALA infrastructure implementation

[add screen shots of front pages of the following sites – that can then link through to]

GBIF France – http://portail.gbif.fr/ • GBIF Spain – http://datos.gbif.es/ UK - https://nbnatlas.org/