Add blog post for 1.0 beta

Change-Id: Ie8b6477fa16667473b84a3442dfb2fa72346b594

website/content/blog/2019_05_16_1.0-beta-help-wanted/index.md

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+---
+author: "David Moreau Simard"
+categories:
+  - development
+tags:
+  - ansible
+date: 2019-05-16
+title: "ARA 1.0 beta: help wanted"
+slug: ara-1.0-beta-help-wanted
+type: post
+---
+
+The first beta milestone for ARA 1.0 is out and ready for testing !
+
+## Main changes since 1.0.0a4
+
+- API: ``/api/v1/info`` has moved to ``/`` and ``/`` was improved with a link to the API index
+- API: ``CORS_ORIGIN_WHITELIST`` now requires the scheme (http/https) as per [django-cors-headers](https://github.com/ottoyiu/django-cors-headers/blob/master/HISTORY.rst#300-2019-05-10)
+- API: Playbook arguments are now provided when listing playbooks at ``/api/v1/playbooks``
+- Clients: API clients now support authenticating with specified credentials
+- Ansible roles: The ara_api role now supports using postgresql for the server database
+
+## Packaging
+
+The API server dependencies are now optional when installing ARA 1.0.
+They can be installed by specifying the ``[server]`` extra requirement:
+
+    # Note: --pre is required when installing an ARA 1.0 pre-release
+    pip install [--pre] ara[server]
+
+Local or offline usage of ARA 1.0 still requires the API server dependencies
+installed but the server does not need to be running.
+
+In addition, when using postgresql, the psycopg2 library can be installed by
+specifying the ``[postgresql]`` extra requirement:
+
+    pip install [--pre] ara[server,postgresql]
+
+## Miscellaneous
+
+- The code review and CI infrastructure was rebranded from OpenStack to [OpenDev](https://opendev.org/)
+- The GitHub mirror is now available at https://github.com/ansible-community/ara
+- Bug, issue and feature tracking have been moved to https://github.com/ansible-community/ara/issues
+
+# Want to try it out ?
+
+The live demos on [api.demo.recordsansible.org](https://api.demo.recordsansible.org/) and
+[web.demo.recordsansible.org](https://web.demo.recordsansible.org/) have been
+updated with this latest beta release.
+
+If you want a quick start, you can have a look at the
+[README](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara/tree/feature/1.0#quickstart)
+or there is otherwise plenty of documentation available to get started:
+
+- [Installing the 1.0 pre-release](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/installation.html)
+- [Configuring Ansible to use ARA](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/ansible-configuration.html)
+- [Configuring the ARA Ansible plugins](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/ara-plugin-configuration.html)
+- [Customizing the API server configuration](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/api-configuration.html)
+- [Setting up authentication and security considerations](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/api-security.html)
+- [API endpoint documentation and object relationships](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/api-documentation.html)
+- [How to use the API with the built-in API clients](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/api-usage.html)
+- [Architecture and workflows: how ARA records data](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/architecture.html)
+
+There are even built-in Ansible roles to help you set up an API server as well
+as the new web interface:
+
+- [ansible-role-ara-api](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/ansible-role-ara-api.html)
+- [ansible-role-ara-web](https://ara.readthedocs.io/en/feature-1.0/ansible-role-ara-web.html)
+
+In fact, these roles are the ones used to deploy the live demos on
+[api.demo.recordsansible.org](https://api.demo.recordsansible.org/) and
+[web.demo.recordsansible.org](https://web.demo.recordsansible.org/):
+
+![live-demo-playbook](live-demo-playbook.png)
+
+You'll find the Ansible roles in the [source repository](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara/tree/feature/1.0/roles).
+
+# Help wanted
+
+ARA is a free and open source community project and it needs help from users and
+contributors for maintenance, new features and improvements.
+
+As a user, your feedback is invaluable to know if the project is living up to
+your expecations.
+
+Was the documentation clear ? Did you encounter an issue when trying ARA ?
+Do you have an idea for a new feature ?
+Join the community and chat with us on
+[IRC or on Slack](https://ara.recordsansible.org/community/) to tell us about it !
+
+As a contributor, there is a wide range of things we could use your help for.
+
+Issues and features are now tracked on GitHub for [ara](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+-label%3A0.x),
+[ara-web](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara-web/issues) as well as
+[ara-infra](https://github.com/ansible-community/ara-infra/issues).
+
+The API server is based on [Django](https://www.djangoproject.com/) and
+[django-rest-framework](https://www.django-rest-framework.org/) while the web
+interface is a stateless javascript application built with
+[patternfly](https://www.patternfly.org/) and [react](https://reactjs.org/).
+
+With this beta release, the API should be mostly settled although we are
+interested in feedback for the database model if you are familiar with Django.
+
+The web interface needs the most love but hey, it works and it is able to query
+the API successfully.
+
+All commits are code reviewed, unit and integration tested before being
+merged to the project.
+
+{{< tweet 1128458564945756161 >}}
+
+If you have time to contribute, I can help point you in the right direction to
+get started.
+
+You can find me as ``dmsimard`` on IRC, Slack and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/dmsimard).
+
+# After the beta: releasing ARA 1.0
+
+Installing and configuring ARA 1.0 is very similar to ARA 0.x on purpose.
+
+However, there will be no support for upgrading an existing 0.x database to 1.0.
+The backend and database model is now based on Django instead of Flask and
+everything was essentially re-written from scratch.
+
+If you are currently using ARA 0.x, now might be a good time to make sure you
+don't upgrade unexpectedly:
+
+{{< tweet 1120780543954751489 >}}
+
+It is important to note that 1.0 will be released without full feature parity
+with 0.x. It was a tough decision to make but I'm convinced the new API provides
+too much value to keep it unreleased while we implement the missing features.
+
+Namely, these are some of the things that will be missing from the 1.0 release:
+
+- A command-line interface (ex: ``ara playbook list``)
+- Generating and exporting data (ex: ``ara generate html``, ``ara generate junit``)
+- An approach for large scale distributed environments similar to [sqlite over http in 0.x](https://superuser.openstack.org/articles/scaling-ara-ansible/)
+
+If these features are important to you, we could use your help to port them to
+use the new API or you can hold out until they are eventually shipped in a
+future release.
+
+Otherwise, the plan is to have a sufficient amount of users try out the beta
+to see if there are any bugs or gaps we might have missed and then tag the
+release once these have been resolved.
+
+Soon ™