BugStation
Bug Tracking System White Paper
ProjectStation Project Management Collaboration Software System
White Paper
WHITE
PAPER
BugStation
The No-License-Fee Defect Tracking System
by BUGOPOLIS
5/27/03
Why BugStation
and not just Bugzilla?
BugStation is a web-based defect-tracking server appliance
featuring Bugzilla with many ehancements designed to make
using Bugzilla easier and more secure. Bugopolis provides
features that are not available by downloading Bugzilla from
the web and it makes installation instantaneous. It serves
up the Bugzilla software already configured with all the necessary
Perl Modules and software components that are required to
make Bugzilla work.
It eliminates hours of engineering time upfront and saves
more time down the road with automatic upgrades. It comes
with enhanced administrative features for ease of use, backup
readiness, a complete on-line user guide, and product guarantees
as well as available support and customization.
Additionally, because BugStation comes on a server appliance
it offers greater security. The system is harder to penetrate
than open-platform systems. It has limited entry points and
Bugopolis has hardened the software to further reduce the
risk of an intruder gaining access to your data The "hardened"
server is secure enough to operate outside of the corparate
firewall making remote access possible without the worries.
Basically, the BugStation saves time, money, difficulties
and worry while serving up the best-of-
breed open-source defect tracking system available.
BugStation is available on two server models; the Small Business
Server, for up to 100 users and the Enterprise Server (Rack-Mount
1U Servers) for extra-heavy data loads and / or larger groups
of users.
Each comes with two hours free support to help initiate the
system, and additional support is available also. The servers
come with a full one-year guarantee on hardware
and labor.
What’s so good about Bugzilla?
Bugzilla organizes the defect tracking process by providing
a centralized system for entering and assigning defects and
tracking their progress. It features advanced reporting, inter-bug
dependency graphing, integrated product-based security schemas,
available integration with CVS, extensive configurability
and it is fully customizable.
A conservative estimate is that over 200,000 people around
the world have used the Bugzilla defect tracking system. It
is impossible – due to the untracked nature of the software
downloads – to determine the number of organizations
using Bugzilla. However, Bugzilla is the defect tracking software
of choice for the following open source software (OSS) organizations
and companies: Linux® kernel development team, Mozilla.org,
Redhat®, Gnome, Ximian®, KDE, the Eclipse consortium,
OpenOffice and Apache.org. Other enterprises using Bugzilla
include: SGI®, IBM®, NASA and the Los Alamos and Sandia
National Laboratories. These and many other groups around
the world have determined that Bugzilla is a robust, featured-filled
defect tracking system adequate for their needs. And, of course,
being open source it can be modified to meet their customized
needs.
An incomplete list of features includes:
How does it compete with other solutions?
There are over 100 defect tracking systems on the market.
The products range from free and shareware offerings to packages
that cost over $1000.00 a seat. Among the free or open source
alternatives the open source community has made its choice
clear. Now Bugopolis provides a solution that provides this
software of choice in a package easier to install than a router
or even a DVD player. And in addition to providing customization
services beyond what proprietary software vendors offer, Bugopolis
offers free and easy to apply security and feature upgrades
for the life of the product.
Finally, the BugStation implements and integrates best-of-breed
practices and software into your appliance and enhances the
base Bugzilla software with additional commonly requested
usability enhancements and other open source software to increase
your team’s productivity with the tool. For example,
the Bugzilla documentation is available in “FAQ-OMatic”,
a popular documentation system that you and your team can
easily extend through a simple to use web-based user interface.
Another system enhancement is the inclusion of Windows software
which allows you to securely administer the server and access
the raw defect tracking database through a stand-alone program
or via ODBC (for MS Access or MS Excel connectivity, for example).
Can’t I just download and install Bugzilla myself?
You can. And many people do. But doing so is not like installing
Microsoft Word or other commercial software packages. For
one thing, the current version of Bugzilla does not run on
Win32 platforms. And to install it on a Linux distribution
several software components which are not part of Bugzilla
proper need to be downloaded and installed. Secondly, Bugzilla
integrates with both a database and a Web server which must
be configured properly for secure and reliable operation.
Finally, those auxiliary components – web server, database,
electronic mail MTA, etc – have all been updated since
many of the current Linux
distributions have hit the shelves. A secure Bugzilla installation
requires the application of several patches for the Bugzilla
software itself. Bugopolis provides all the updates needed
either out-of-the box or in subsequent software updates.
What does Bugopolis do for me that isn’t done by installing
Bugzilla myself?
In addition to receiving a fully functional “hardened”
Bugzilla server “out-of-the-box” you get a system
enhanced with navigation features and data entry modifications
which make Bugzilla easier to use. Also, you receive improved
documentation and extensible online help, support and customization.
The BugStation also provides:
• Tools
for the administration of the BugStation server through
a
web interface
• An easy-to-use update mechanism for applying enhancement
and security patches
• A flexible collection of backup options for the
Bugzilla database
• Integrated source management of the Bugzilla code-base
which
enables the merging of customizations with the evolving
Bugzilla
code-base
• Phone and e-mail technical support
•Software upgrades for the life of the product
What is available with respect to customization?
Bugopolis offers reasonable hourly and fixed-bid customization
or general service contract options for the Bugzilla code
or the Bugopolis BugStation server appliance. Contact sales@bugopolis.com
for more details.
What about integration with XYZ?
Bugzilla can be integrated with CVS and Perforce SCM systems.
Because of the opensource nature of Bugzilla it can potentially
be integrated with other products though a customization contract.
How will the BugStation fit into my IT infrastucture
Your IT department will not have to tune, troubleshoot or
provision this software. As part of the fulfillment process,
Bugopolis requests information about the network infrastructure
where you intend to deploy the BugStation. Using that information,
Bugopolis configures your BugStation at our site so it can
simply be “plugged in” when you receive it without
additional configuration. Should your requirements change
Bugopolis will assist you in reconfiguring your server appliance.
How can you sell “free software”?
Pretty much the same way the companies selling Linux distributions
and server appliances are selling free software. Redhat, Mandrake
and Sun Microsystems® (with its Cobalt® line of server
appliances) all sell products which include royalty free software.
In the case of the Linux distribution vendors the value proposition
is built on the integration of the OSS (Open Source Software)
components and ease of installation and maintenance of the
distribution.
Sun’s Cobalt line of server appliances provides a tight
hardware/software integration which provides small businesses
the application services most commonly desired across a fairly
generic customer profile (e-mail, web server, VPN, FTP server,
etc) in a server appliance package. The Cobalt server appliances
also provide the software tools for managing the appliances.
In our case specifically, we eliminate hours of engineering
time up front by making Bugzilla ready to plug in and use.
Then there is the greater security provided by a server appliance
and by “hardening” the software that makes the
system secure enough to operate outside of the corporate firewall.
We create an even greater value proposition by enhancing Bugzilla
with an admin feature and by making software updates automatic
and ready to apply and use instantly. Lastly by providing
support, user-friendly manuals and customization services.
Other examples of popular available server appliances from
various companies include:
• NAS
(Network Attached Storage) server appliances
• Print servers
• Home broadband routers
In all of these cases the devices are tightly integrated hardware/software
bundles which focus on providing a limited set of functionality
well and they strive to minimize administrative complexity,
usually by providing an HTTP based administration console.
Or take the example of Dell’s Oracle® Application
Server. Dell® has coupled its hardware (and distribution
channel!) with Oracle’s J2EE™ application server
to provide a high-end solution for its enterprise customers.
While the markets for the server appliances described above
are surviving, if not exactly thriving (see, for example,
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/10/31/021031hnappliance.xml?s=IDGNS
) the “niche” market for more tightly focused
server appliances such as Google’s search appliance
(http://www.google.com/appliance/index.html ) and Mirapoint’s
message server will continue to be healthy among small to
mid-sized companies that need to focus on growing their product
and service offerings rather than their IT departments. Two
trends that favor the adoption of more focused “vertical”
server appliances are the continuing increase of the price-performance
ratios of computer equipment and the improving quality and
functionality of open source software projects beyond the
categories of operating systems and general web or e-mail
servers.
The number of MIPS per dollar, GB of storage per dollar and
Mb of bandwidth per dollar in today’s hardware platforms
changes the equation for mid-range application solutions.
It is literally cheaper to provide a computer with software
pre-installed than it is to invest the R&D dollars in
end-user installation software and end-user installation support.
By narrowing the target hardware to only a couple of configurations
not only is the “out-ofbox” experience for the
end-user improved but continued software maintenance is paired
down to the supporting of those limited configurations. Just
as computational responsibility is removed from the CPU (and
implicitly its supporting operating system) by more sophisticated
peripheral controllers on your desktop PC, application services
for an increasing number of groupware programs will be moved
to server appliances where the approaching hardware cost of
$200.00 will be able to support 100 or more users.
5
With respect to the improving quality of OSS software its
well known that StarOffice and OpenOffice are starting to
cause consternation in Redmond. MySQL™ and PostgreSQL
are gaining parity with their commercial brethren Oracle and
SQL Server – especially in terms of the core functionality
which will meet 95% of database user’s needs.
The Security
Advantage
The Bugopolis
proposition is the same and more true for the specialized
applications provided by Bugopolis. And, in particular, for
the groupware tools used by software developers. Advantages
of hardware-software distributions. Having just enough software
on a server appliance to run your server application improves
the maintainability, security and performance of the appliance.
By not running a server application in a desktop environment
the software configuration can be paired down to just the
components needed and settings appropriate for a general purpose
computing device can be reduced. For example, the number of
user accounts it is necessary to maintain on the appliance
is limited and most likely will not need to be increased even
as software upgrades are applied to the server appliance.
Reducing the number of "user accounts" on the box
enhances its security.
Interoperability
Another significant advantage of the server appliance approach
is that clusters of related server appliances can operate
together on a subnet dedicated to their interoperability -
effectively isolating the internal Bugopolis network infrastructure
from the corporate network. For example, a defect tracking
server, a source code management server and a NAS (network
attached storage) backup system can automatically configure
themselves to access the services provided by the other servers
with no administrative interaction. All these services would
provide an external face to the corporate LAN through well
defined and securely routed interfaces but the plug and play
nature of their interoperability will happen
transparently. Moreover, this can be accomplished with open
and standard protocols. Future Bugopolis products will take
advantage of this ability to interact on a separate "bus"
between the individual servers.
What Else Does Bugopolis Do?
ProjectStation
Project Station is a project management collaboration software
server appliance that implements Gforge, a fork of the software
that runs SourceForge.net. ProjectStation organizes business
and software development projects by providing a centralized
system for coordinating project news, task items, defect reports,
centralized distribution of software, documentation and project
specification. ProjectStation allows users to: Gain version
control; utilize “Tracker” for centralized tracking
of support requests, bug reports and feature requests; track
projects; access discussion forums and utilize the forum and
Tracker monitoring system that updates them on the status
of a post or an issue. Also, GANTT charts and reports can
be produced using project data.
What’s SourceForge.net?
SourceForge™ – as they state on their homepage
– is the Internet’s largest repository of Open
Source code and applications available on the Internet.
“Repository”?
Actually, SourceForge is more than a repository. It provides,
in addition to storage space for the software, web-based software
tools for managing software development projects.
What sort of software development project management tools?
Here is a partial list:
• Source code control (CVS)
• Web-based browsing for a project’s source
code
• Centralized project information page which includes:
project description, developer information, activity statistics,
software release management, links to integrated defect
tracking, feature requests and support requests, links
to internal USENET like
forums, link to the DocManager, links to project specific
mailing lists, links to the most recent project related
news items, link to external “homepage” if
one is desired and more.
• Forums and lists - Internal (forums) and external
e-mail driven threaded discussion groups
• Tracker – Issue tracking system that allows
the creation of separate lists for defects, support requests,
feature requests, etc
• Centralized documentation management system providing
categorized, annotated links to project documentation
• News Slashdot-like news facility. Most recent
news items also show up on the summary page.
• CVS server information and web-based repository
browsing with ViewCVS
• Admin pages for the easy setting up and maintenance
of the above functionality.
How useful is all that stuff?
Very useful. And over 500,000 people working on 50,000 projects
hosted at SourceForge.net
apparently agree.
How does your Project Station compare with VA Software’s
commercial SourceForge offering?
At this point in time VA Software has a more feature-filled
offering. But even given that, we believe a cost-benefit analysis
will favor the Bugopolis Project Station. Furthermore, we
believe the active development on Gforge, the underlying software
for Project Station, will in short order reduce if not eliminate
the differences in the feature comparison. Gforge is an active
OSS project which is quickly being adopted by other open source
projects that need to build and coordinate a developer community.
Why Bugopolis Project Station?
All the advantages listed in this document for purchasing
a BugStation rather than installing and maintaining on your
own a download of the software also apply to the Project Station.
Bugopolis is about the deployment and maintenance of the best-of-breed
open source software. We leverage increasingly inexpensive
(but attractive!) hardware and base software between the products
to provide secure and easy to maintain (and customize!) server
appliances.
About Bugopolis Bugopolis is an innovative provider technology
that offers the best-of-breed software at an
affordable cost and without license fees. We make open source
technology readily available without the engineering time
and set-up costs typically required to install and use it,
and we add an enhanced value-added package of security, support,
updates, user guides, administrative features and customization.
Our server appliances are ready for your immediate and unlimited
use. Bugopolis uses the widely recognized technology of Linux
and we share the philosophy of open source software and promote
principles that allow the customer to take control. We provide
products that you can choose without overhauling your current
infrastructure. This means no more monopolies, no more price
gouging and no more technology lock-in. Bugopolis joins industry
leaders in providng open source products and innovative solutions.
Jim Walters, co-founder of Bugopolis, has spent more than
20 years in the technology industry with experience ranging
from hands-on black box testing to the design and implementation
of proprietary and commercial test automation systems, to
serving as the Business Director of a multi-million dollar
developer tool product line. He was one of the original founders
of STL (Software Testing Labs) and has held key positions
with industry leaders including Microsoft, Aldus, Adobe and
Apple Computers.
Contact Information:
BUGOPOLIS, LLC
206 Second Street
Sausalito, CA 94965
http://www.bugopolis.com
Email:
sales@bugopolis.com
Phone: 415-324-5033
