Final Remarks

Some concluding remarks on the entire process, which took more than 14 months from start to finish:

  1. Staff changes at the SEFSC in 2022 caused us to have to restart the initial planning effort in early 2023. This was unfortunate but beyond our control.

  2. The Fisheries Cloud Program Portal outlines a 5-step onboarding process. Our experience more or less followed this process, although our timeline far exceeded the estimates given for each step. A more detailed description of the process is now available here and more closely aligns with our experience.

  3. The total time the request was with OCIO was roughly 10 months. During this period, we had to communicate requirements and justify the project many times and in several different forums (meetings, written documents, before a panel board). While we recognize that adequate documentation is critical for any project, we feel that better communication between all parties involved could streamline this process and reduce redundant efforts.

  4. This was a huge team effort involving scientists and VIAME end users at the SEFSC, project managers and IT consultants at OCIO, and local IT staff at our FMC. Cloud was and is new to everyone involved. Provisioning the VIAME instance required our IT to learn new territory. We are tremendously grateful for their willingness to take this on, for supporting this first cloud project for the SEFSC, and for their flexibility working with us to ensure its success. We are also very grateful for the technical support that OCIO provided to get us started and answer many questions.