VISION
Setup a web application server which runs OpenProjekt, Wekan and OpenOlat.
Planning
a) Use VirtualBox as virtualization host for a virtual machine running a well-supported, server linux distribution.
b) Make use of available package repositories to implement the required services.
c) Use of a compressed BTRFS-Filesystem, secured by automatic online-snapshots.
d) Each service should be accessible via it’s own subdomain below *.sjuhl.de
e) Contrary to the current usual cloud storage solutions, data should be stored locally.
Realisation
1) Recently I setup a virtualbox guest environment using an actual Ubuntu Focal Fossa 20.04.01 server edition, spending 32 GB Hard Disk Space (RAID5), 4 GB RAM and two cores of my bare metal Hewlett-Packard DL380 G6 server, which is operated 24/7 with 100Mbit/s fibre optic uplink. A virtualized PostgreSQL database server is already running on the same machine.
2) Installed wekan using Ubuntu’s snap system and setup OpenProject using packages provided by OpenProject Package Source.
3) Setup of OpenOlat is not as straightforward and easy as wekan or OpenProject, but still manageable and possible using tomcat (9.0.31), openjdk-8-jre/jdk-headless from Ubuntu’s package repositories and the instructions „Another Installation Guide Postgresql“ available at openolat.com. I also developed a shell script to keep backup and update of the OpenOlat System as easy and smooth as possible.
4) Set up of the necessary CNAME DNS records along with an NGINX Virtual Host reverse proxy configuration in order to enable access to the services via Internet.
Verification & Proof of Work
Please visit the following websites and do not hesitate to get in contact with me for a demo account in case you would like to take a closer look at the web-based applications used:
Projekt Management: OpenProject
Kanban Board: Wekan
Learning Management System: OpenOlat (they recently implemented Contact Tracking)
Outlook
I am really convinced of the efficiency of the aforementioned, open source, web-based services. In my opinion, these are excellent tools that can make a big contribution to effective project work and task completion at small and medium-sized companies, especially if your team has to work from home or off-site, due to Corona pandemic.
From an system auditor’s point of view, with ISO 9001 7.1.6 in mind, OpenOlat can be used to create necessary process documentation and help convey this content to your team in a modern and efficient way.
I would be delighted to have the opportunity to roll out such a project for you!
