[Pasig-discuss] ANNOUNCEMENT: DSpace 6 is Now Available!

[Carol Minton Morris]

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

October 25, 2016
Read it online: bit.ly/2eN5YQt

*NOW AVAILABLE: DSpace 6.0–API Enhancements and New Features*

*From Tim Donohue, DSpace Tech Lead for DuraSpace, on behalf of the DSpace
developers*

I would like to formally announce that DSpace 6.0 is now available!  DSpace
6 provides significant API enhancements and new features to the DSpace
platform.

   - DSpace 6.0 can be downloaded immediately from:
   https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/releases/tag/dspace-6.0
   <https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/releases/tag/dspace-6.0>
   - 6.0 Release notes are available at: https://wiki.duraspace.org/
   display/DSDOC6x/Release+Notes
   - In addition, you are welcome to try out DSpace 6 on
   http://demo.dspace.org/ and continue to provide feedback on this major
   release.

DSpace 6 features an enhanced configuration system, enhanced file storage
plugins, and new quality control / healthcheck reporting features (via REST
API and via email).  In addition, DSpace 6 has an eye on the future, with a
major Java API refactor that adds support for both UUIDs and Hibernate in
our database layer.  Like its predecessor, DSpace 6 continues to strive to
simplify your upgrade process by automatically updating your database to
6.x compatibility (from any prior DSpace version).

ENHANCED CONFIGURATION

In DSpace 6, most configurations (those in *.cfg files) automatically
reload themselves. This means you no longer need to restart your webserver
every time you wish to modify a backend configuration.

In addition, a new "local.cfg" file has been added to the codebase. This
local.cfg gives you the power to override any configuration (from any *.cfg
file) by simply copying it into your custom local.cfg file. This means you
no longer need to manage all your configurations in separate files.
Instead, you can simply copy all your customizations into your local.cfg,
and easily take them with you in future upgrades.

More information on this feature may be found at https://wiki.duraspace.org/
display/DSDOC6x/Configuration+Reference and in the Release Notes.

ENHANCED FILE STORAGE

In DSpace 6, the file (bitstream) storage plugins have received a major
refactor, including support for Amazon S3 file storage.  Additional file
storage plugins may be built in the future (or you can build your own).
More information on this feature is available athttps://wiki.duraspace.org/
display/DSDOC6x/Storage+Layer#StorageLayer-ConfiguringtheBitstreamStore

HEALTHCHECKS AND QUALITY CONTROL

Want to receive a regular email report of how large your DSpace is? Want to
be notified of oddities in your logs (exceptions/warnings) before they
cause more severe issues?  Then take a look at the new, configurable email
healthcheck reports that come with DSpace 6. More information is available
at https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Healthcheck+reports

Ever wish you could dig deeper into your site's metadata or files
(bitstreams) without having to write database (SQL) queries?  What if you
could find metadata or file oddities before your users reported them?  The
DSpace 6 REST API now features a Quality Control reporting interface, along
with a sample (HTML) client user interface.  More information on this
feature is available at https://wiki.duraspace.org/
display/DSDOC6x/REST+Based+Quality+Control+Reports  The sample HTML clients
can be tried out on our demo site (Sample Query client:
https://demo.dspace.org/rest/static/reports/query.html and Sample Quality
Control client: https://demo.dspace.org/rest/static/reports/index.html).

REFACTORED JAVA API

While obviously not a customer-facing feature, DSpace 6 includes a major
refactor to the underlying Java API to make it more secure, easier to
maintain and to help better support future roadmap goals.  Key among these
changes is the addition of Hibernate (http://hibernate.org/) to manage
database logic and simplify our support of both PostgreSQL and Oracle
backends.  We've also added UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) support
for all objects. Finally, the Java API itself has been modularized into
three distinct layers, which provide business logic ("Service" layer),
database access (or DAO) layer, and individual object access layer
(setters/getters for each object).

For most users, these Java API changes (and necessary database upgrades)
will be seamless.  However, if you have made major site customizations
(involving adding new or custom Java API calls), you will need to update
your local code to support the new 6.x Java API. Much more information on
the extent of these changes is available at https://wiki.duraspace.org/
display/DSPACE/DSpace+Service+based+api

OVERVIEW OF ALL NEW FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS IN 6.0

   - Java API refactor, featuring Hibernate and UUIDs
   - Enhanced (reloadable) configuration system, featuring a new local.cfg
   configuration file
   - Enhanced file storage plugins, featuring support for Amazon S3
   - Configurable site healthchecks via email
   - XMLUI framework for metadata import from external sources, featuring
   support for PubMed imports
   - XMLUI export of search results to CSV (for batch editing)
   - XMLUI extensible administrative control panel
   - REST API Quality Control Reports, along with sample HTML clients and
   CSV export (for batch editing)
   - REST API support for additional authentication methods (e.g. LDAP, etc)
   - All searches default to boolean AND.
   - Enhanced indexing for searches (Excel is now searchable, as well as
   right-to-left text in PDFs)
   - OAI-PMH adds compliance for OpenAIRE 3.0 guidelines for literature
   repositories

For a list of all new features in DSpace 6, please see the Release Notes:
https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC6x/Release+Notes

DOCUMENTATION

The DSpace 6.0 Documentation is available online at
https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC6x/
Upgrade instructions (for any previous release of DSpace) are available at:
https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC6x/Upgrading+DSpace

6.0 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The DSpace application would not exist without the hard work and support of
the community. Thank you to the many developers who have worked very hard
to deliver all the new features and improvements. Also thanks to the users
who provided input and feedback on the development, as well those who
participated in the  testathons.

We especially would like to thank the 6.0 Release Team, which consisted of
Pascal-Nicolas Becker (Technische Universität Berlin / The Library Code),
Tim Donohue (DuraSpace), Kevin Van de Velde (Atmire), and numerous other
Committers who volunteered their time.

A detailed listing of all known people/institutions who contributed
directly to DSpace 6.0 is available in the Release Notes. If you
contributed and were accidentally not listed, please let us know so that we
can correct it!  https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC6x/Release+Notes

For DSpace 6.0, we had a total of 73 individuals contributed code, bug
reports, and bug fixes. A big thanks goes out to everyone who participated.
We hope you'll continue to be a valuable addition to the DSpace community
for the next release and beyond!

As always, we are happy to hear back from the community about DSpace.
Please let us know what you think of 6.0!
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