Backup complexity

[labman]

Is it me or is Alfresco in need of a simplified backup facility? Why can't the software contain a button that runs a script to enable a secure backup/restore routine? I am relatively new to linux but have managed to start gaining a small amount of knowledge on the subject. I have managed to install Alfresco and set the permissions etc. to enable effective use of the system but now I have to research and spend many hours to find out how to effectively protect its data. It's brought me to a point of wondering whether to entrust it with my files in case there is a disaster and I can't recover from it (due to my own shortcomings). I know it's a free platform and I am very grateful for it but, I think that it would be more attractive to companies considering the commercial version if it had this facility (or does the commercial version have such a facility?).  Anyone feel the same or is it just me?

[zbennett]

The short answer to your questions: Servers that can host Alfresco (especially Linux servers) are setup and configured in so many different ways that a 1-click backup doesn't sound very feasibly to me.  Fortunately, the Enterprise Edition comes with setup and support!

My further thoughts:

I have spent a lot of time trying to implement and deploy Alfresco as a CMS for the company I work for, and I really wish I had the funding for the Enterprise Edition.  I am pretty new to Linux as well and, as a result, I have spent sooooo many hours learning about Alfresco's prerequisites (not to mention learning about Alfresco itself).  I am also bottle-necked by the lack of a simple backup plan, but I'm slowly figuring it out.  Sure, the experience has been great, but it isn't exactly a one-man job.

I haven't had much time to work on my Alfresco implementation recently (it's our busy season, so I have to dedicate my time to client projects), but I do find myself inspired by some of the success stories out there.  One case study I recently read is about Merck Serono's research facility (http://storage.pardot.com/1234/101735/Alfresco_Case_Study_Merck_eng.pdf).  They started using Alfresco Community Edition years ago and they tailored it to their needs.  It was a large, involved project, but in 2008 they finally switched over the the Enterprise Edition.  Of course, Merck is a large company that can easily fund an Alfresco implementation, but the story still gives me hope.  I think the moral of the story is that a CMS can't be implemented over night, even if you have the funding for it.

On the flip slide, though, Alfresco's November newsletter begged the question "is it actually cheaper to use the free version?"  In the newsletter, Bill Robinson writes about how some companies spend more money trying to implement the Community Edition than they would have by just going with the Enterprise Edition (http://www.alfresco.com/community/newsletters/2010/11/us.jsp).  Much to my dismay, I don't have any experience to support the claim, but it's definitely worth a read!

I hope this helps!

[sheerlucidity]

I know this is a stale post, but others may have the same question (I know I did …).  I'm an attorney with a small law office (three other attorneys) and couldn't justify spending 100 hours on a complex disaster recovery plan, so I just installed Alfresco Community Edition in a Virtualbox Guest (if it sounds complicated, go the bitnami route).  Then, you can just set your favorite ubuntu friendly backup software to do a nightly backup to a NAS or even to an old desktop fitted with a couple of 1tb or 2tb hard drives (remember to use encryption if the docs contain sensitive info)

[zbennett]

Hi sheerlucidity,

Thanks for the tip!  My Alfresco project was moved to the back burner a while ago because we didn't have a solid backup plan in place.  I was just asked to get the ball rolling again, and a simple backup plan would be a tremendous help!

Have you successfully tested restoring the system from your backup?  And how well does Alfresco perform running in Virtualbox?

Thanks in advance,
Zach

[pcj_52]

Alfresco is a great product. Exactly what I need. My skills are as an end user and not an administrator. Therefore, I'm forced to abandon my use of Alfresco due to the complexity of the backup process. I have the ability to successfully install Alfresco, but I'm just overwhelmed at the level of complexity involved in creating a backup process.

[zbennett]

pcj,

Have you seen the Bitnami stacks that sheerlucidity mentioned above?  I haven't tried them yet, but they look pretty solid and easy to implement, including backups (I just returned from travelling and I'm about to dig into them).  They have packages for installing on VMWare Server and VMWare Player, as well as packages that are ready to install on a Cloud server.

You can find the Bitnami installers here: http://bitnami.org/stack/alfresco

And you can find the free VMWare Player here: https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=player&lp=1

Assuming I actually find time to implement Alfresco running in VMWare Player, then I hope to take careful notes and write up a tutorial to share here…

[pcj_52]

zbennett,

Thanks for the advice…..I'll take a look

[sheerlucidity]

I'm sorry for not logging in more recently on this, but between my smb server project, adding two new attorneys to our office, and raising two boys, I haven't had the chance.  Our office project is moving along, but is, of course, labor intensive. 

I would suggest you look at using virtualbox.  I was struggling with installing alfresco on a server with zarafa and sugarcrm.  I started on Zentyal (which offers it's own modified ubuntu server base os in the install), clearos, and finally settled on Ubuntu Server 10.04.  Problem in the end was in conflicts between the system components fighting for resources but having different dependencies.  Not just a problem with resolving conflicting ports either, but with configuring Tomcat, etc …  Using Virtualbox, I had the Sugarcrm and Alfresco systems up and running, with tweaks, in a couple of hours because the vm keeps the guest machine components separate.

Bitnami helped immensely with Alfresco and Sugarcrm.  The stacks are stable, debugged, and secure.  The only problem I encountered is trying to customize the Bitnami Ubuntu Server 10.04 lamp stack to use for a zarafa guest machine. 

IMHO, Bitnami's stacks are a waste of time if you intend to do major customization from the cli.  The annoyances I encountered were that the repository files only include base repositories, your choice of text editors is "vi" and "vi" alone, and installing the guest machines seems to be a major time waster if you do not intend to do much direct work on the server once the installation is complete.  Anyway, I personally ended up using a straight Ubuntu Server 10.04 installation onto the guest machine and did an installation of zarafa from source.  That way, I had the flexibility to easily add postfix, fetchmail, webmin, etc … etc … etc … and it was much smoother that way.

Once the installations were complete, I scheduled evening backups of the virtualbox guest machine files (you need virtualbox 4 to do this easily) through webmin, and then I manually encrypt and copy the backup to a portable hdd that I take home once a week.  (Our office is small, but it's in a high rise in Columbus, Ohio, with security guards, sprinkler system, etc … so this works for me until I get a good secure automated remote system).

The backups restore easily and our server is in production at the office.  Right now, I'm working on implementing z-merge to tie all three together more seemlessly.

Good luck and I hope this helps!

SL

[zbennett]

Hi SL,

Thanks for your thoughts!  I'm running Bitnami's Ubuntu 10.10 VM with their Alfresco 3.4.d-0 stack right now.  I just grabbed the VM image from their site since my Alfresco server only needs to run Alfresco.  I was also a little annoyed that it only came with the VI editor, but a quick "sudo apt-get install nano" solved that problem for me.  Now I do all of my customization work in Nano through PuTTy.  I didn't want to ask my company to pay for VM software, so I just installed VMware Player (free) to run the VM and wrote my own backup script.  I probably could have used VMware's snapshot feature, but I decided to just shut the VM down, copy the files to my backup drive, and start the VM again (along with a bunch of steps to ensure the backup was successful)).

My backup hard drives should be delivered tomorrow and I'll finally be able to put the finishing touches on my backup script and test the heck out of it!  For those interested, my Alfresco machine is running Ubuntu 10.04 (with the VM guest OS running Ubuntu 10.10).  I plan to post my entire backup script and a user guide shortly after I verify everything works as intended.