RFI - Advanced Light Source (ALS) - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Web Based Software Application Development

The ALS User Office facilitates user interactions with ALS resources through a web-based application. This application encompasses a user registration system, a publications database, proposal submission and processing, and an experiment safety and scheduling platform. User data has been maintained in a 4D database for over two decades.

The 4D database functions as a web server and provides a web interface for users to register information, create profiles, submit proposals, schedule on-site visits, and complete feedback surveys, while managing all related data within its tables. With the evolving user office software requirements, data security, scalability, and integrability requirements, there is an immediate need of re-developing a brand new web based application.

Contemporary technologies, modern tech stacks, and web tools offer the capability for developing fast, secure, scalable, and integrable web applications. Advancements in data management techniques enable efficient storage, retrieval, and data management, along with their seamless integration with other reporting applications and data exploration tools. Using the latest technologies and databases also helps in easy debugging and resolving development challenges.

Therefore, the ALS User Office intends to re-develop the user interface by designing and implementing applications that improve user interaction with ALS resources. This will include redesigning and re-developing the centralized user-serving platform, user registration, proposal submission, publications management, as well as implementing reporting and data exploration tools. Secure authentication (using OAuth, SAML, LDAP) and role-based access control will be implemented and integrated.

Existing users' data will also be migrated to the Postgres database from the 4D database for high efficiency, scalability and security. This migration will enable the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) APIs to automate some of our workflows and tasks by leveraging AI. Additionally, ALS User Office plans to adopt continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines to deploy software capability more quickly. See attached RFI for additional information on intended scope of work.