On Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 October 2020 the HIFIS Meeting 2020 took place. Originally planned as a face-to-face event, the event was re-organized due to current developments and carried out as a "two-day online video conference". The numerous members of HIFIS from all Helmholtz institutions were presented with a tightly planned and informative lecture programme.
Focus of the first day was on information about the current developments in the field of "Helmholtz AAI" and about the cloud service selection process. The audience learned first-hand which services are integrated and offered in the first version of the technical platform. Subsequently, the audience was informed about the current developments in the area of software services and further education in the use of programming languages and programs. In five breakout sessions, participants were able to exchange views on questions such as "How does a federation of several Sync & Share services work" or "How do user requirements come into software portfolio management". In the summary that followed, the results of the breakout sessions were presented in a bundled form and discussed in the plenum.
The second day was dedicated to a number of special topics: The day started with a presentation on the current status of developments in the backbone working group, which aims to connect all Helmholtz institutions with a dedicated VPN. Based on this, the HIFIS file transfer service was presented, which will realise a secure and fast data transfer between the institutions. In the presentation "Consulting and Technology Services" the participants were informed about the experiences in terms of individual support in software development. The second part of the day was characterised by the presentation of the activities of the groups "Service Integration" and technical platform. A demonstration of an example workflow, which included several Helmholtz institutions, clearly showed what is already possible. The second day was concluded with a demonstration of the current status of the technical platform and a concluding plenary discussion.
The response to the two-day online meeting can be described as highly concentrated and constructively. The participants found the lectures consistently exciting and very informative. They were given a comprehensive and complete overview of the numerous developments in HIFIS.
