Search

This paper investigates effective management approaches for critical software systems, with a focus on monitoring and early warning techniques. Drawing on real software systems developed at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), the study analyzes suitable software management techniques facilitated by technology and proposes a roadmap for organizations seeking to enhance the reliability of their software systems through such methods. The results of this research provide a template for teams responsible for critical systems, allowing them to implement monitoring both at the level of the software implementation, but also at the level of the day-to-day management of the team's members. Key performance indicators, such as the number of incidents created, are presented and shown to be under control with the implementation of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software systems are often maintained by a group of experienced software developers in order to ensure that faults that may bring the system down are less likely. Large turnover in organizations such as CERN makes it important to think of ways of onboarding newcomers on a technical project rapidly. This paper focuses on optimizing the way that people get up-to-speed on the business logic and technologies used on the project by using a knowledge-imbued large language model that is enhanced using domain-specific knowledge from the group or team's internal documentation. The novelty of this approach is the gathering of all of these different open-source methods for developing a chatbot and using it in an industrial use-case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fault-tolerant systems are an important discussion subject in our world of interconnected devices. One of the major failure points of every distributed infrastructure is the database. A data migration or an overload of one of the servers could lead to a cascade of failures and service downtime for the users. NoSQL databases sacrifice some of the consistency provided by traditional SQL databases while privileging availability and partition tolerance. This paper presents the design and implementation of a distributed in-memory database that is based on the actor model. The benefits of the actor model and development using functional languages are detailed, and suitable performance metrics are presented. A case study is also performed, showcasing the system’s capacity to quickly recover from the loss of one of its machines and maintain functionality.

The proliferation of big data in virtually every branch of society and industry comes with the need to adapt and develop monitoring and alerting systems in such a way that the system can cope with any kind of data stream, whilst also ensuring rapid response times. This paper presents a framework based on modern open-source technologies that can be used to improve the quality and reliability of a connected system (such as an industrial control system), through effective monitoring and alerting. Service level agreements are crucial in our modern society, where failures need to be detected quickly and effectively, especially when one is providing a service and every moment of downtime means a large quantity of lost money and potential customers, thus monitoring is essential. Benefits in terms of responsiveness and lower downtime are also discussed, with an emphasis on a prototype implementation for a major non-profit organization.

The new CERN Single-Sign-On (SSO), built around an open source stack, has been in production for over a year and many CERN users are already familiar with its approach to authentication, either as a developer or as an end user. What is visible upon logging in, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind the scenes there has been a significant amount of work taking place to migrate accounts management and to decouple Kerberos [1] authentication from legacy Microsoft components. Along the way the team has been engaging with the community through multiple fora, to make sure that a solution is provided that not only replaces functionality but also improves the user experience for all CERN members. This paper will summarise key evolutions and clarify what is to come in the future.

This manuscript explores effective management strategies for software teams and portfolios involved in developing critical software systems, using a case study of engineers at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). The aim of this paper is to investigate and present strategies employed by CERN's development teams in managing critical software systems, with a focus on ensuring quality, reliability, and the ability to support groundbreaking research. The paper analyzes and discusses various management strategies implemented by CERN's software teams, ranging from rigorous (automatic) quality control measures to the organization of self-organizing development teams capable of handling diverse tasks and situations related to their products. The findings based on several quarters of analysis highlight the benefits of the discussed strategies as observed in CERN's development teams. The adoption of these techniques at CERN demonstrates their effectiveness in managing critical software systems for scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, CERN had been considered eligible for academic pricing of Microsoft products. Now, along with many other research institutes, CERN has been disqualified from this educational programme and faces a 20 fold increase in license costs. CERN’s current Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure, dating from 2008, comprises multiple Microsoft services from the web Single-Sign-On to the Accounts Database. Replacing these core components is an opportunity to rebuild the CERN infrastructure using the latest technologies and concepts and to respond to evolving requirements of the community. It is also the appropriate moment to consider the alignment of CERN’s and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid’s approaches to identity management, to create a more consistent environment for operators, developers and users. 2019 saw the launch of an Alpha version of CERN’s next generation Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure, focusing on free and open source products and responding to the limitations experienced by the current system. We describe the new solution and focus on key changes.