IUG 2008 Day 1 pt.. 2

After the Keynote I attended a session titled "WebBridge Strategies, Tips & Tricks" which is obviously very relevant to what I'm presently working on. I picked a few valuable tips that I will be able to implement in our iteration of WebBridge including adding a WebBridge link on a no-hit search result page and I have a much clearer understanding of how and when to use what are called "category suppression rules" which allow a particular category to be suppressed when another is "active" and vice-versa.

The following session I attended was called "What's Up With Hardware?" which was presented by Doug Randall a VP from Innovative in charge of Product Technology. Doug's sessions are always mandatory as far as I'm concerned because he is in the position to give us a good idea of what is coming down the road in terms of hardware and other infrastructure to support Innovative systems. A few point from Doug's talk:

• Server life is 3-5 years maximum. Start planning for your next server as year 3 rolls around.
• The server that we just purchased last year from III, a Sun V245, is being replaced as the turnkey server option this year with a Linux-based Intel system. In general, Millennium doesn't care which kind of server that it runs on, so Innovative's change to Linux servers in no way means that our Sun server is obsolete in any way. They are just adapting to the server options available in the larger marketplace. One significant improvement with the new Linux servers will be the incorporation of hardware RAID to replace the less-efficient and more CPU-intensive software RAID that TOPCAT currently uses for data storage.
• Innovative is making a new service available called ServerPlus which is a new program in which Innovative builds the cost of server replacement into yearly maintenance fees. So instead of paying separately for a new server every 3-4 years, you simply receive a new server when III deems it necessary. This service also includes all installation, setup and Force Majure insurance coverage. This means that if the server is damaged for ANY reason, that III will replace it free of charge. Then with each new server your receive you also get:

• Re-indexing
• A workshop registration
• A WebOPAC Refresher

• This new product is obviously meant to help libraries more easily plan financially for inevitable server replacement by building the cost into annual maintenance and be able to have server replacement part of the operating budget.

Opening Session

The conference opened today with the traditional update from Jerry Kline the CEO of III. Innovative continues to be the leader in the ever-shrinking ILS market. They added 93 new partners over the past year and did not lose any customers to other systems.

He made a point of emphasizing that III will be gradually moving away from yearly, large system software updates to a more streamlined model of development that will get products and enhancements out much quicker than with the traditional once-a-year model that they have used up to this point. He does not expect new products to be perfect before making them available and has had to repeatedly remind the staff at III of this new thought process. They will strive to get more products out that will receive much more frequent updates. fixes and additional functionality. This philosophy meshes very well with SWITCH's commitment to make new products and services available ASAP instead of waiting until everything is perfect. There is no perfect time to make changes or add modules so just get it done as fast and prudently as you can.

There are nearly 1600 attendees at the conference this year with nearly 25% of them attending for the first time.

All that was great, but the highlight of the opening session was when I won a $25 Borders gift card during the raffle.

IUG 2008 Washington D.C.

In contrast to last years IUG Conference my flight to DC was uneventful and on time. On Sunday evening I attended my final Functional Experts meeting where we perform a post-mortem on the past Enhancements Cycle and look forward to the next one. After four years I will be cycling off the committee.

More later.

Release 2007 Update

On Thursday we received another "final" update from Innovative for Release 2007. This update was very small in scope and none of the fixes should affect TOPCAT. Release 2007 is very close to being made available to all III customers.

Update R

We received the latest update yesterday and I'm happy to report that this is the last weekly update that we will receive for this beta testing phase. From now until Release 2007 is put into general release, III will only be applying patches individually to our system as necessary.

There will eventually be one last update to the final version of Release 2007, but I don't have any information as to when that will occur.

-Bill

Update Q

As you probably noticed when TOPCAT didn't work for a couple hours today that we received this week's software update. Other than breaking access to the catalog there don't appear to be any significant updates (for us anyway) this week.

-Bill