September 15, 2023 Architecture Team Meeting Notes

Attendees

@PSRAMKUMAR

@Trev Harmon

@Steve Conrad

Apologies

 

 

 

Agenda

Presenter

Duration

Discussion

Technical Reviews of BB specs

@Steve Conrad

10 minutes

Update on review process:

Wes to review Wave 3 BBs to ensure that they are aligned to the template.

Ramkumar to work with Wave 3 teams to get complete list of contributors.

@Steve Conrad - Set up meeting with eMarketplace so that we can articulate the current and future scope, as well as what procurement functionality should be included (either current or future)

Specific question for Architecture team: MKT-154: Service APIs Section - Technical Review for Non-REST APIsDone

PAERA Update

@Aare Laponin @PSRAMKUMAR

15 minutes

Update on changes to PAERA document and progress/next steps

Working draft:

https://onedrive.live.com/Edit.aspx?resid=7B252BA6CB083436!9551&wdPid=5887d621&authkey=!AC4bdYfdJIaKi8M

Ready for review and comment (Sections 1-3). Steve and Wes to review.

Need to decide where this lives for the upcoming release (GitBook, linked, PDF)?

  • Put summary/overview in GitBook (in cross-cutting section) and then link out to full content (ie. PDF in GitHub)?

Capabilities/Service Blocks

@Wes Brown

15 minutes

Review service block (capabilities) template

Need clear definition of distinction between building block and service block.

 

 

 

 

Future Topic - September

@PSRAMKUMAR

 

Go through key learnings from Egypt deep dive and Kenya roadshow and map out how to address them in the architecture documents

  • Do we need an adaptor Building Block?

  • How do we align terminology with governments who may have a different view of particular BBs or services. Are there better ways to quickly agree on terms?

  • IM questions

    • Large data transfers through IM. How do we secure access to those resources?

    • Using IM on intranets

    • How do we handle IM failures?

    • Sandbox uses auto-approval process. Document that this is not recommended.

Future topic - Fall 2023

Manage Access Authorization to BB APIs

@Jaume DUBOIS

30 minutes

  • Types of accessors checked (human, back-end systems, apps or browser, robots, hardware, ..)

  • Granularity of access control (Building block, module, API, single API service, single API service for specific tenant or data)

From Technical Committee Meeting:

BBs should not own RBAC - the calling applications are responsible for it. 

Are we using token based authorization within the request to BB?

How to get candidates bypass its own RBAC?

  1. Superuser access to be given when merging with IM backend?

  2. Or control to switch off existing RBAC in target BBs

  3. option to have api token registered in IM at max permission level for specific member entities

  4. come up with a concrete example for this case

Action Items

  • Ramkumar to connect with Hani/Nico on infra requirements

Future Topics

  • Define a standard set of APIs that are needed for any BB to indicate that they are running, configured and ready to use in the sandbox (or test harness). Do we need a BB registry?

  • Decoupling BBs into smaller pieces, as well as talking about an approach for existing products which span multiple BBs

  • SSO and how we provide functional IDs

  • Identify experts that can do reviews of all Wave 1, 2, 3 BBs and map out process for external reviews

  • How to articulate the different levels/scopes of building blocks - foundational/DPI, functional, and possibly application (things like eMarketplace). This should be clearly articulated in GovStack documentation. Also articulate how service blocks fit in to this paradigm.

    • Identify BBs that are missing/needed and develop plan to address those new BBs - get feedback from Egypt and Kenya meetings