2023 Update

This document was sent to Fedora and Samvera communities in December 2023 and was intended to share progress and provide updates for all users interested in the advancement of Hyrax 5.0.0 backed by Fedora 6 using Valkyrie in place of ActiveFedora. The following details were shared:

Hyrax 5.0.0 

• At the end of October, an RC was released for Hyrax 5.0.0 which can be downloaded and tested here.

  • RC continues to undergo user testing and a stable release of Hyrax 5.0.0 will be released once this period has completed

We also wanted to provide some consolidated information on other areas of work related to this Working Group that may be of interest:

• Sirenia - Hyrax development application configured to use Valkyrie (in lieu of ActiveFedora) for accessing Fedora 6 + Solr.

  • Currently in “experimental” status, but available for use and testing

  • How you can help:

    • Use the following Performance testing and feedback sheet to help move progress forward on this project.

    • High-level performance testing summary - Summary2 tab calculates that approx 50% of the tests have been completed and nearly all of the completed tests are passing

    • Exceptions;  file versioning, editing file permissions, and large number/large size file uploads on Works and learning more about a user on Search and Discovery

  • Consider joining the Hyrax Maintenance Working Group for the most up to date information - Reach out to Rebekah Kati (Hyrax Product Owner) with any questions.

• Metadata migration adapter work in preparation for migrating to Fedora 6

  • SoftServ completed work connecting Hyrax to an alternate storage backend (in this case Postgres) via Valkyrie.

    • This paved a migration path from Fedora 4 to Postgres for anything that doesn’t have files, which has already been implemented at another institution.

    • Shows proof of concept for work related to Fedora 4 to 6

  • Work in progress:

    • Ensuring filesets work with Valkyrie and optimize specs for these new adapters (SoftServe) 

    • Ensure specs are green for koppie (Princeton). 

    • Once this is complete there will be a fully working adapter for Fedora 4 to Postgres (Freyja) and an untested but likely fairly close to working adapter for Fedora 4 to Fedora 6 (Frigg).

  • Work left to be completed:

    • Testing a migration from Fedora 4 to 6

      • The hope is that this test will uncover any remaining bugs or issues to feed back to the community.

How does that prepare us for migration to Fedora 6?

• This demonstrates a model for the migration path, but there is modification need for Fedora 6. 

• Sirenia is currently proving functional but additional user testing is needed. 

• Fedora 6.5 (expected in January) will enable pairtree identifier configuration options, to resolve the last outstanding requirements for operation within Sirenia.

• Nurax Testing Environment

  • There have been some initial conversations surrounding the use of a Nurax instance for Sirenia for community testing once the Hyrax RC is completed and officially released.

    • The proposal is to maintain 3 instances: Dassie, Koppie and Sirenia, reflecting the 3 possible setups that are representative of our users.

  • Bulkrax would be available within Sirenia to mirror more closely a production-style implementation for performance and scale testing.

    • Stay tuned for additional information on this proposal

• Hyrax Fedora 6 Working Group Stakeholder Use Cases

  • As a group, we compiled our individual use cases to help understand needs, similarities, differences and workflows. They can be found on the Hyrax Fedora 6 Working Group wiki page (see Stakeholder Use Cases).

    • These use cases will be used to help guide decision-making and development priorities as work progresses.

As you can see there is a lot of work being done throughout our partner communities to support this effort and we are grateful for all of the contributions being made to help achieve these momentous milestones. We hope this has been helpful to bring you up to speed on these successes and also highlight what work has yet to be completed.