Q's on Web app - Alfresco Cloud Integration

[ceeeyem]

Hello,
I recently came to know about Alfresco and its cloud offering. We have a web application product that is used be multiple users from the apparel industry. One of our application's feature allow users to store and manage their content (images, CAD files, excel sheets etc…) in our own servers in Databases and file systems.

We would like to bring in the concepts of version management, file access etc… on top of this basic offering we have right now. Alfresco seems to fit in nicely in this situation.  FYI, I spent some time on the Alfresco cloud API, created a sample site with content in it and downloaded the OAuth app and ran it locally.

Can you give me some direction as to how to start developing this Web application -> Alfresco Cloud bridge? More specifically?

a) How can my web application users (have email addresses different from the actual Alfresco network domain address that will host the content) create/access/delete content in Alfresco cloud?

b) Is Alfresco Cloud economical in the long run assuming our user base grows and space requirements grow with them?

c) Are there any tools/packages that are typically used for this type of integration?

d) Pointers to documents/articles/white papers to help me with this integration?

Thanks a lot!
Karthik.

[mrogers]

If you are using alfresco as a back end to your website the other option is for you to run your own instance of alfresco then you have full control over it.   Or it may be that you don't want to do that in which case cloud could be an option.

a) How can my web application users (have email addresses different from the actual Alfresco network domain address that will host the content) create/access/delete content in Alfresco cloud?
You would need to invite them into your "network".

b) Is Alfresco Cloud economical in the long run assuming our user base grows and space requirements grow with them?
I'd hope so.

c) Are there any tools/packages that are typically used for this type of integration?
Many and varied.

d) Pointers to documents/articles/white papers to help me with this integration?
You are on the cutting edge for alfresco cloud,  the public API has only been out for a couple of weeks.    Using alfresco as part of a website is a well established and there are many many instances.

[ceeeyem]

Hello,
Thanks for your reply.

Yes, we would like to test out the Cloud offering as that seems like an easy option (need not worry about installation, maintenance, learning-curve etc…).

Can you please clarify my situation below:
Our web application does not use any LDAP or directory services for user authentication, but plain old DB and business logic. Given this,

a) if we want to allow our application users to access our network/repository in Alfresco cloud, do we need to ask our webapp users to register in Alfresco cloud before proceeding further?

b) If this is true, can I assume that this registration can be done via an API that Alfresco Cloud provides? ( i.e., our users need not leave the web app and go to Alfresco in a separate session to register)

c) Once registered, do they (our web app users) have to sign-into Alfresco cloud every time they want to access content stored in the network?

I would greatly appreciate your help on this. Thanks!

Karthik

[pmonks]

G'day Karthik,

a) if we want to allow our application users to access our network/repository in Alfresco cloud, do we need to ask our webapp users to register in Alfresco cloud before proceeding further?

Correct - every user in Alfresco Cloud needs to be registered separately.

b) If this is true, can I assume that this registration can be done via an API that Alfresco Cloud provides? ( i.e., our users need not leave the web app and go to Alfresco in a separate session to register)

Not yet, although it's on the list of APIs we're considering adding - see https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/PUBLICAPI-26.  It'd be great if you could note any additional details you'd like us to consider as part of designing this API.

c) Once registered, do they (our web app users) have to sign-into Alfresco cloud every time they want to access content stored in the network?

If they're accessing their content via your application, no.  OAuth (the authentication mechanism the Alfresco Cloud APIs use) works on the basis that the end user will login to the Alfresco Cloud once, and your application will be provided with an "access token" that you can use for any subsequent API calls for a period of time (right now access tokens time out after 1 week).  You can also "refresh" an access token using a separate refresh token (that's also provided to your application) for up to a month - after this the user will be forced to log in again.

The upshot is that provided your application stores the access and refresh tokens permanently (not to mention securely - they should be encrypted while "at rest"), the user will only need to re-login to the Alfresco Cloud once per month.

Cheers,
Peter

[ceeeyem]

Hello Peter,
Thank you very much for your reply and clarifications. As I mentioned in my previous posting, I am new to Alfresco and trying to understand its various offerings. I have decided to test out the Foundation APIs to understand it better.

Our long term goal is to use the cloud offering thereby having the flexibility to grow. Will visit the thread that you have mentioned and add to it.

Thanks,
Karthik