Summary and Schedule

This lesson traces the infrastructure that runs the UCLA Library Dataverse instance. It covers the AWS resources that provide compute, storage, and networking; the Ansible configuration that installs Dataverse and its dependencies; and the tooling that makes rebuilding and migrating the system repeatable.

It is written for people working in or being onboarded to UCLA Library data services: DSC staff, DataSquad students, and anyone who will be operating or handing off this infrastructure. The assumption is comfort with the command line and some exposure to cloud services or configuration management, but not infrastructure expertise.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• Describe the components that make up a running Dataverse instance and what each does
• Navigate the three repositories that manage the UCLA Dataverse infrastructure
• Explain the division of responsibility between Terraform (infrastructure) and Ansible (configuration)
• Run the key Makefile targets for daily operations: rebuild, baseline, reindex
• Read test output and baseline comparisons to verify the system is in a known-good state
• Understand the 7-phase migration plan and what each phase accomplishes

Who this is for

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• Data Science Center staff coming up to speed on what the infrastructure team built and why
• DataSquad students supporting data services and infrastructure work
• Incoming operators taking over responsibility for the Dataverse instance
• Tim and Jamie using this as a structured way to document decisions made during the 5.14 to 6.8 migration

Prerequisites

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• Comfortable with the command line (navigating directories, running commands)
• Basic familiarity with Git (clone, commit, push)
• An AWS account with credentials for the ucla-library-dsc profile, or access to the team’s shared environment

See the Setup page for installation instructions.

	Setup Instructions	Download files required for the lesson
Duration: 00h 00m	1. Introduction: Why We Built This Way	What is this lesson and who is it for? What infrastructure does Dataverse need to run? How are Terraform, Ansible, and the Dataverse application connected?
Duration: 00h 20m	2. Tooling Setup	What tools do I need installed to work with this infrastructure? How do the three repositories fit together on my local machine? How do I configure AWS credentials for the correct profile?
Duration: 00h 50m	3. Terraform: The Infrastructure Layer	What AWS resources does Terraform manage for this project? How is Terraform state stored and shared between operators? How are Tim’s and Jamie’s environments organized?
Duration: 01h 25m	4. Ansible: Configuration and Idempotency	What does dataverse-ansible configure on the EC2 instance? What does idempotency mean in practice, and why does it matter for operations? How are environment-specific values managed without duplicating configuration?
Duration: 02h 00m	5. The Dataverse Stack: Payara, Solr, and the Data Layer	What is Payara and why does Dataverse use it? How does Dataverse store and retrieve data across RDS, S3, and Solr? What breaks when Solr is out of sync, and how do you fix it?
Duration: 02h 40m	6. Secrets and Environment Configuration	How are secrets kept out of the repository? What configuration is different between staging and production? What is a FAKE PID provider and why does it exist?
Duration: 03h 08m	7. The Makefile: Daily Operations	What can I do from the Makefile? What does make rebuild actually do, step by step? When do I run make baseline vs. make reindex?
Duration: 03h 38m	8. Testing and Validation	How do we know the migration worked? What does the test suite check? How do baseline comparisons verify data integrity?
Duration: 04h 08m	9. Using AI Tools in Infrastructure Work	Where does AI actually help with infrastructure work, and where does it mislead? What should I never share with an AI tool? How do I stay technically grounded when AI is doing a lot of the work?
Duration: 04h 33m	10. The Migration Arc: 5.14 to 6.8	What changes between Dataverse 5.14 and 6.8? Why is the migration done in phases? What happens on cutover day and what does rollback look like?
Duration: 05h 03m	Finish

The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.

Introduction

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You do not need to understand everything on this page at this time. The goal is only to get the tools working. By the end of this setup, you will be able to authenticate to AWS, run Terraform, and prepare a working directory.

1. AWS Account

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You will need an AWS account you can log into.
During the lesson, AWS will be used to create a virtual machine and store a small amount of configuration data.

2. Install the AWS CLI

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We use the AWS CLI throughout the lesson to authenticate and confirm credentials.

macOS

Windows

Linux

Install using Homebrew:

BASH

brew install awscli

Verify:

BASH

aws --version

Use the official MSI installer:

1. Download: https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi
2. Run installer
3. Verify:

POWERSHELL

aws --version

On Ubuntu/Debian:

BASH

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y awscli

On Fedora/RHEL/Amazon Linux:

BASH

sudo dnf install -y awscli

Verify:

BASH

aws --version

Checklist

If you are using a personal AWS account without Identity Center, ask the instructor for an alternative setup.

Before running aws configure sso, confirm the following:

• IAM Identity Center is enabled in your AWS account
• You have been given:
  • an SSO start URL (looks like https://your-org.awsapps.com/start)
  • the AWS region for Identity Center (commonly us-west-2 or us-east-1)
  • permission to assume at least one AWS account role

If you do not have this information, contact your AWS administrator.

3. Configure AWS Credentials (IAM Identity Center / SSO)

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Callout

AWS authentication is changing (and that’s normal)

AWS has significantly changed how users authenticate over the last few years.

Older tutorials often reference: - long-lived access keys (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID) - aws configure with static credentials - manually managing credentials files

This lesson uses AWS IAM Identity Center (SSO), which is now the recommended approach for most organizations.

As a result: - some older guides will not match what you see here - prompts in the AWS CLI may look unfamiliar - defaults (like SSO registration scopes) are usually correct

If something feels different from past AWS experience, that’s expected.

Instructor Note

Learners with prior AWS experience may expect access keys instead of SSO. Reassure them that Identity Center is now standard in many organizations and that accepting defaults is usually correct.

This lesson uses IAM Identity Center, the modern AWS authentication system.

Run:

BASH

aws configure sso

Follow the browser prompts to authenticate.

Then confirm your identity. This command doesn’t change anything. It only confirms that authentication worked.

BASH

aws sts get-caller-identity

You should see:

• Your AWS account ID
• Your IAM role ARN
• Your user ID

Callout

About the “SSO registration scopes” prompt

During aws configure sso, you may see:

BASH

SSO registration scopes [sso:account:access]:

For this lesson, press Enter to accept the default.

You only need a different value if your organization has explicitly instructed you to use custom scopes.

4. Install Terraform

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macOS

Windows

Linux

BASH

brew tap hashicorp/tap
brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform

Using Chocolatey:

POWERSHELL

choco install terraform

Using Scoop:

POWERSHELL

scoop install terraform

On Ubuntu/Debian:

BASH

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y gnupg software-properties-common
wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp.gpg] \
https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" \
| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install terraform

On Fedora/RHEL:

BASH

sudo dnf install -y dnf-plugins-core
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/hashicorp.repo
sudo dnf install terraform

Verify installation:

BASH

terraform version

5. Create a Working Directory

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Create a folder where your Terraform configuration files will live:

BASH

mkdir terraform-dataverse
cd terraform-dataverse

6. (Optional) Clone the Lesson Repository

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If you want the example files from this lesson:

BASH

git clone https://github.com/jt14den/terraform-aws-infrastructure

Key Points

• Install AWS CLI, Terraform, and Git before beginning the lesson
• Use aws configure sso to authenticate with AWS Identity Center
• Use terraform version and aws --version to verify installation
• Create a dedicated working directory for Terraform files