CMDBuild newsletter n. 36

March 2013

CMDBuild is a configurable web application to model and manage a database containing assets (CMDB stands for "Configuration and Management Data Base") and handle related workflow operations.

CMDBuild is promoted by the Municipality of Udine and developed by Tecnoteca srl.

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TOGAF event - CMDBuild

"Tool open source per le organizzazioni che hanno adottato TOGAF: Archi e CMDBuild" (Open source tools for organisations that use TOGAF: Archi and CMDBuild) is the title of the meeting that will be held next 28^th May in Florence in the Sala delle Feste of Palazzo Bastogi (via Cavour 18), provided by the Regional Council of Toscana.

TOGAF is an open framework that supports the design and management of IT enterprise architectures, while Archi is the reference open source tool to design TOGAF compliant models.

Until now was not available an open source repository to store and manage the elements modeled with Archi.

CMDBuild can now be used for this purpose thanks to the “plugin” developed in cooperation by the University of Bologna and SIAE, that provides the complete bidirectional synchronisation with Archi.

Please find below the schedule of the meeting:

• 2.30 – 2.45 PM: Carlo Cammelli, person in charge for the Technologies and ICT processes of the Regional Council of Toscana: "Why best practices and the communities can help the PA to change"
• 2.45 – 3.15 PM: Maurizio Romano, Icons: "Service manager, Service architect, Project manager: three roles many relationships"
• 3.15 – 3.45 PM: Francesco Bocola, HSPI: “Management and representation of Enterprise Architectures with TOGAF and Archimate: Purposes and main features of a combined approach”
• 3.45 – 4.00 PM: Coffee Break
• 4.00 – 4.30 PM: Fabio Bottega, Tecnoteca, CMDBuild Project Manager: “The CMDBuild project: philosophy, functionalities and next developments”
• 4.30 – 5.30 PM: Luca Bompiani, University of Bologna and Maria Licciardi / Fabrizio Zavagli, SIAE: “A plugin that synchronizes Archi and CMDBuild: functionalities and advantages of a collaborative work. Use demonstration”
• 5.30 – 5.45 PM: Discussion

Work in progress

CMDBuild 2.1 is going to be completely developed within the current week. It will include the following features:

• the possibility of saving and reusing the search filters
• implementation of the new view system (both based on search filters and on SQL queries)
• definition of access permissions on rows and columns, useful to differentiate the access to data with “multiseat” or “multiclient” criteria
• lock implementation when modifying data cards

From the outset, the application will be provided to the internal technicians, who will carry on all necessary test activities, verifying both functional and performance sides of the new version.

CMDBuild 2.1 includes the complete remaking of the DAO module (Data Access Object, the interface of the data persistence mechanisms) and therefore requires a particularly complete and careful test session.

The test will probably take the entire month of April.

CMDBuild on field

CMDBuild is used by the Municipality of Udine, which is the first Customer of the project, not only to manage IT assets but also to work within Education Services (Trouble Ticketing for School needs), within Social Services (Contribution Management / Services through workflows) and City Museums.

In particular, for this application we provided a database able to host and manage works of art. In fact over 6,000 cards have been pre-uploaded on the system (Museum of Modern Art, Gallery of the Project and Natural History).

The database organisation was defined according to the Italian rules for the cataloguing of Cultural Assets (adapted to the institution needs). For this purpose the modelling tool of CMDBuild proved to be really useful since it includes the possibility of defining common attributes (also on various hierarchical levels) and inherit them on the specific cards of every kind of artworks.

In the previous months we extended the system by importing to the database further 5,000 cards (Ancient Art and Natural History) and about 5,000 images in various sizes and resolutions, correlated to the cards.

In these weeks the Museums staff is testing the information imported to the system.

Upgrade to AGPL license

Within next release 2.1, CMDBuild will upgrade its license from the GNU GPL 2 to the GNU Affero GPL (AGPL).

The AGPL license preserves the same freedom to use, copy, modify and redistribute the software, but introduces additional protections. In fact, it includes the obligation to return to the community any improvements and extensions even made by those who use the application to deliver services directly on the network (in "cloud" mode and similar).

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The Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) is an Autodesk initiative, created to support companies and experts in developing software that integrates with their products.

As we wrote also in the previous newsletter, since last year we are developing the project “CMDBuild for BIM” (Building Information Modeling), whose purpose is the interoperability between CMDBuild and external BIM-compliant tools using the open ICF standard.

Autodesk Revit is one of the market leader products in the field of BIM tools.