For almost a year, the DAMAP team has been planning and implementing the new features and improvements in version 5.0. Last week, the completion was celebrated with a festive surprise cake. 

DAMAP as a shared service

What is there to celebrate? The primary goal of the new version – to enable offering DAMAP as a shared service – has been achieved! This means that, in addition to its previous use in institution-specific local instances, DAMAP can now also be operated as a cloud solution for multiple universities. To achieve this, the purely technical configuration – such as infrastructure integration, security parameters and updates – has been clearly separated from the non-technical customisations (corporate design, wording, institution-specific content). The latter can now be easily carried out directly by the data stewards at the respective institution, without requiring involvement of their IT department. Compared to a solution with multiple individual instances, a cloud-based shared service simplifies day-to-day operations, as updates, security patches, and maintenance can be carried out centrally for all participating institutions. This significantly reduces the overall effort and costs.

The improvements in detail

• DAMAP can now more easily integrate with universities' Single Sign-On (SSO) systems. This includes federated identity infrastructures, such as those used in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), making DAMAP ready for use within EOSC.
• It also recognises from the SSO login which institution the users belong to and directs them straight to the correct database. To clarify: although the different institutions use the same instance in the cloud, they are each assigned their own databases for data protection reasons. And of course, they can only see their own university's DMPs.
• A DAMAP Helm Chart has been developed so that DAMAP can be used not only as a container but also in Kubernetes in the cloud.
• The setup process has been made clearer and simpler to improve standard deployment in containers. With the step-by-step guide in the Reference Manual, setup is a cakewalk.
• DAMAP has been enhanced so that university-specific customisations can be made directly in the admin view of the user interface. The customisations are automatically migrated, presented more clearly, and require no IT knowledge. Colours, images, repository recommendations, DMP templates, specific texts and translations can be adjusted to one's own needs.
• DAMAP is now compatible with both the RDA Common maDMP API and the OSTrails Application Profile. The API implementation was also used to establish a connection to a new evaluation service. You can find more details on these topics in this DAMAP blog post.
• And, of course, there have been a number of bug fixes and usability improvements this time around as well. Check our release notes for details. 

Next steps

Having the technical requirements for DAMAP as a shared service well prepared, we hope that the organisational, legal, and financial conditions will soon be clarified as well. Arrangements for this are in full swing. 

And the cake?

The recipe is a secret, but this much we can say: it was a perfect combination of chocolate sprinkle cake, panna cotta, and strawberries. Fresh, fruity, and a real treat to share – just like DAMAP.