Progress of the PEPPOL project
by
Manoela Bodiroza
—
created on
04/05/2010 08:45
The 7th quarter of the PEPPOL project starting 1.11.2009 was the first quarter of operation for the four newcomers to the PEPPOL consortium: · Research Centre for Biomaterials (EKEVYL), national authorised representative, Greece. · Agência Nacional de Compras Públicas (ANCP), national authorised representative, Portugal. · Scottish Government (ScotGov), regional representative, UK. · Ekonomistyrningsverket, National Financial Management Authority (ESV), national authorised representative, Sweden.
The four newcomers joined the PEPPOL consortium after an enlargement process initiated by the CIP ICTPSP third call for proposals, opening in January 2009. As part of the enlargement process, the PEPPOL consortium saw the need for updating the original technical annex to the EC grant agreement. Through this update, changes were made both to take the experiences gained in the first year of project operations into account and to facilitate involvement of additional PEPPOL participants. The new high level approach for the remaining 24 month project period, including a six month extension of the original 36 month project period, have been divided into three main phases:
Phase 1 - Developing Proof-of-Concept pilot containing the artificial setup but not production ready lasting from November 1st 2009 until April 30th 2010 (first period):
• Technical specifications and development of Proof-of-Concept Pilot.
• This period is mainly used for activation and deployment of newcomers’ resources into the different WPs and tasks
Phase 2 - Test Pilot with “dummy data” containing the artificial setup, but in principle production ready – lasting from May 1st 2010 until October 31st 2010 (second period):
• Test Pilot and adjustments of developed software, use of “dummy data”.
• During this period, all newcomers shall connect their solutions to the PEPPOL infrastructure.
Phase 3 - Production Pilot - containing real life set up, rolled out into a production environment, limited scale lasting from November 1st 2010 until November 2011 (third period):
• Production Pilot, rolled out into a production environment.
• During this period, countries not yet part of the PEPPOL consortium are invited to connect to the PEPPOL infrastructure.
• Routines for connection of new participants will be based on the experiences gained in the second period.
A more detailed view on this three phase approach can be given through the illustration below.
· Proof of Concepts (PoC) is used to create basic components using a SCRUM methodology. This means a fast, flexible and agile way of creating building blocks. The consequence is that Basic Components - and Basic Architecture (component) specifications deliverables are finalized at the same time.
· When the Basic Components and the Basic Architecture is finalized, Test Pilots are initiated to test its quality, flexibility, robustness and scalability in a test environment i.e. no business actions are initiated when an eProcurement transaction is performed.
· The original pilot phase now renamed to Production Pilot is the test pilots moved into real business settings. The Production pilot will be running for at least 1 year.
The advantage of this approach is that newcomers will be able to participate and contribute much more and earlier than in the original approach.
Both test pilot pilots and production pilots are evaluated, analyzed and acted on through the whole project. This can result in new and more advanced PoCs and Test Pilots being performed through the basic architecture Test Pilots and Production Pilots.
Through the evaluation process and the execution of the Production Pilots, results for creating eProcurement Best Practices on rollout, governance, implementation and testing is extracted and disseminated through Best Practice deliverables.
Last an evaluation of the PEPPOL project is made from an accumulation of WP specific evaluation deliverables.
Generic tasks for WP2, 3, 4 and 5:
PoCs
· SCRUM based development of software components in cooperation with WP 8
· Test software components
· Initiate setup of Contracting Authority – Economic Operator pairs
· Develop and implement test pilot- and production pilot evaluation model and plan
Test Pilots
· Implement architecture and software components
· Test architecture and software components
· Evaluate architecture and software components
· Adjust architecture and software components, based on findings in testing and evaluation
· Implement architecture and software components in production environment
Production Pilots
· Test architecture and software components in relation to business processes
· Evaluate architecture and software components in relation to business processes
· Extract Best Practice
· Accumulate evaluation results
These tasks will be detailed in each of the relevant WPs.
WP 1 and WP 8 are developed and piloted (PoC, test pilot and production pilot) ahead of WP2, 3, 4 and 5, since they form the foundation for these WPs. But the real Test Piloting and Production Piloting only makes sense in connection with one or more of WP2, 3, 4 and 5, so the Best Practice and Evaluation is made in alignment with these WPs.
Throughout the piloting phases, a sustainability model is developed and implemented, to secure a continuation of the PEPPOL solutions after 01.11.2011.
