Draft Belgium as dot star server

[B0r1sD]

Hey all!

The useGalaxy Belgium team would like to open the discussion on the requirements on becoming an official usegalaxy.* or 'dot star' instance.

Below I copied the current listed requirements (updated on Dec 23, 2023) with a comment underneath where I added the current state of https://usegalaxy.be. Points of discussion marked in bold.

.* Membership current requirements

Updated: These servers commit to updating Galaxy within 90 business days after new releases.

Since upgrading our Galaxy BE from version 24.1 to version 24.2, we've implemented a 'Request for change' or RFC method as part of change management that we are now applying to basically all our services. This solidifies the whole upgrade process as it comes with risk assessment, peer and technical review, step-by-step documentation, an upgrade checklist,... . We have been committed and successful in upgrading within 90 bussiness days, which we are now applying to v25.0.

Freely accessible: these servers may not place restrictions on access or registration, anonymous usage must be permitted.

We don't have any restrictions on access or registration as anyone can make an account. We do not have anonymous usage enabled, but this might not be a hard requirement anymore?

Public infrastructure configuration: we hold ourselves to a very high standard. Everyone should be able to reproduce what we do, and we commit ourselves to securing our infrastructure using best practices and in the eye of the public.

Most of the repositories of our usegalaxy-be are public on Github: https://github.com/orgs/usegalaxy-be/repositories?q=visibility%3Apublic. Our infrastructure playbook is not. Is this still a hard requirement?

Common Tools & Reference Data: once work in progress finishes, these servers will share a common set of tools, and must provide CVMFS reference data.

We provide CVMFS reference data (https://usegalaxy.be/libraries), and have 1400+ tools available on our instance.

Functional: the site provides >90% uptime as monitored by the status page, and participates in automated cross-usegalaxy testing initiatives.

EDIT: We are now also part of the official status page, and are also in this one. We have also been monitoring https://usegalaxy.be internally for some months, and can quite confidently say that we have been providing (and will continue to provide) well above 90 percent of uptime. We just lack the historical numbers to back this up properly. What are these automated cross-usegalaxy testing initiatives refering to?

[mschatz]

Very exciting! Would it be possible to connect your metrics to those presented here: https://gxy.io/kui

@afgane is the contact for this

[martenson]

The criteria have been clarified: #2657

[B0r1sD]

Very exciting! Would it be possible to connect your metrics to those presented here: https://gxy.io/kui

@afgane is the contact for this

Thanks @mschatz, we'll contact Enis for this!

[B0r1sD]

Update: usegalaxy BE has been added to https://status.galaxyproject.org/. Thanks @martenson!

[bgruening]

Please let us know if the "make playbooks public" is a big problem for you. Thanks!

[B0r1sD]

Galaxy BE is now present in the KUI dashboard, with numbers that have been double checked: https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/8cfee054-2ddd-4711-af5a-a7a8d62076bb/page/p_zfz14zckwd.

[B0r1sD]

Please let us know if the "make playbooks public" is a big problem for you. Thanks!

We are working on making our playbook public, and will give an update when this is ready!