MCatalog/Phases of Delivery

Phases of delivery/Technology Readiness Levels(TRLs)

Web-based Smart Contract Demonstration

The first three levels of TRL will use Smart Contracts and Ethereum-based account classification to perform LKPP-defined product catalog data update and publication business process. From the beginning of this project, all business requirements, account types, and data content types will all be organized and managed using a consistent data packaging workflow, namely Project Knowledge Container(PKC), which is designed to support Web3-based software development projects. This includes the following levels of Technology Readiness Levels(TRLs):

TRL 1

Demonstrate that each Programmable Account represents a self-contained LKPP-specified business process, each business process would involve a set of explicitly defined roles, such as buyers/vendors/administrators, who are identified by Externally Owned Accounts. These account authentication and authorization services will be integrated with the open-source account authentication microservice in a local instance of PKC, operated and administered by LKPP technical staff with technical support from this project team.

TRL 2

Demonstrate how data transparency and non-corruptibility is achievable by the security model of blockchain-based Smart Contracts. A few low complexity use cases will be identified by LKPP with the implementation team, and data transparency and non-corruptibility will be revealed and explained by these use cases.

TRL 3

Document the data types and data content categories in terms of what must be made public and what must be encrypted or stored privately. Define the data storage, backup/restore mechanisms leveraging the existing infrastructure of PKC. A specific data storage and backup/restore procedure, co-developed with LKPP will be the foundation for establishing guidelines for implementing the evolving business processes as they will necessary to be defined incrementally by LKPP when new requirements and needs reveal themselves.

Technology Demonstration and Deployment Process

TRL 4

Refine and ensure all code base can switch between public and self-hosted Ethereum-compatible blockchains, and works on generic web-based human-machine interfaces. Demonstrate the PKC can serve as a framework to deploy and test varying versions of the same code base, include relevant web-based documentation that facilitate this overall project.

TRL 5

Based on data types defined in TRL 3, present repetitive control structures in LKPP-defined business processes as standardized templates in Smart Contracts. These standardized templates should be initially written in the programming language Solidity, and they are defined to enhance software reusability and reduce the complexity of business process verification and validation.

TRL 6

Establish a full stack programming protocol (from secured data to user interfaces, or generically called Web3 programming protocol) for LKPP's blockchain catalog system. Starting from the beginning of the project, working with LKPP to define the look and feel of web interfaces, and incorporate UI/UX designers to create an adequate user experience that matches the expectation of stakeholders. The UI/UX code base will incrementally converge with the Smart Contracts that are being developed in parallel, many design decisions will affect the code integration efforts and influence data service deployment processes.

System/Subsystem Integration, Test and Product Launch

TRL 7

Develop working prototypes of modularized catalog data publishing and updating web services. Work with an initial group of actual buyers/vendors/administrators as early adopters to validate the workflow. Create automated or semi-automated test processes to load a significant amount of test data to stress test the system.

TRL 8

Based on the Web3 programming protocol defined in TRL 6, this project phase will demonstrate that LKPP-defined business processes (relevant to catalog data publishing and editing), can be organized as modularized building blocks, as explicitly documented web pages with hyperlinked/version controlled data/source code assets, so that accountability of changes of data sources and data assets' control structures can be explicitly traced.

TRL 9

Deploy LKPP's product catalog data service to the public. This deployment should demonstrate that web-based user interfaces, data backup/restore procedures, blockchain-based account and data transparency features, testing, usage statistics, user documentation, source code and data content version control can all be subsumed in an SSOT framework, namely Project Knowledge Container, as a meta catalog of data and source code. LKPP can utilize the above mentioned features to evolve the overall functionalities of this product catalog service and potentially other web-based data intensive applications.