Setting up a new site

[leviter]

Does anyone have a 'best practice' for setting up a new (and very simple) site?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm investigating if Alfresco can be used to manage the content of a simple site with a small amount of logic. I'm thinking of a site with a small amount of JSP files and only a couple of content managers/editors who create a lot of content.  

Personally I don't really see the need for sandboxed here, but I am not sure if it is possible to use Alfresco without sandboxes…

My problem is that I don't really know where to start… what to think of… how to use Alfresco in this case in general I guess.

Right now I'm thinking of using Alfresco WCM for the authoring of the content and build a standalone webapp (either embedded or remote) to access the content and display the content (probably using JSP) and adding some custom logic. But I am not sure if this is "the way to go".  :?

Any push in the right direction will be greatly appreciated!

[kvc]

Sounds like the way to go to me!

Sandboxes are good even for the simplest site … for a basic site, the site can be directly served from Staging (rather than deployed), in which case a single user sandbox can serve as a useful "staging" server for building and testing pages before deploying.

With our GA release this week, we will be including an updated sample site along with a how-to guide for building a basic dynamic site.

Please stay tuned for the release this Wednesday.  The updated how-to guide will be posted the following day Thursday.

Kevin

[edgar]

Hi Kevin,

Sandboxes are good even for the simplest site

Clear. I agree that sandboxes are always useful. Using sandboxes you can leverage the workflow and preview capabilities that Alfreso offers.

… for a basic site, the site can be directly served from Staging (rather than deployed)

My question would then be: what exactly do you mean by "basic"? Do you mean a web site that has little traffic? Or a web site that has little templating or application logic? One of our questions is: to what level is the virtualisation server (through which we would then deliver the web site in staging sandbox to our users) scalable?

An important advantage that I see in deploying a web site from the Alfresco server to a separate live web server is scalability. You could deploy the web site to a cluster of web servers for example. Other questions then come to mind such as: can you "pre-render" all of the web pages before the deployment to the live server or do you need to make calls to the Alfresco server from the live server using one of the Alfresco API's?

In any case we are very interested in upcoming 2.0 GA release and the updated documentation!

[supertoon]

We are also looking for the best way to set up basic dynamic sites. Although there is a lot of information, it is rather scatted.  Perhaps the following questions can make the issue clear and hopefully someone can answer them.

1. Should a website normally be deployed from the staging sandbox to a separate live environment?


2. What is the "normal way" to do this? (rsync op CIFS??)


3. If a website runs stand-alone in the live environment, should it use the API to access the WCM repository for dynamic operation (building a menu etc.)


4. If so, what API is best used (and delivers quick development) : foundation, JCR (no access to sandboxes yet), JSF components etc??


5. Should it be possible to run the Alfresco 2 WCM BETA example website (with PressReleasesBean etc.) outside the virtualisation server?


6. If not, is the an example of a stand-alone website that accesses the repository outside the virtualisation server (like the SDK examples, but then a web application)

Thanks in advance,

Toon

[kvc]

Should a website normally be deployed from the staging sandbox to a separate live environment?

Yes.  This March, with our 2.0.1 release, we will be shipping our replication add-on module.  This replication module can be used to sychronize snapshots on remote Alfresco servers.  New items submitted to Staging can be either automatically pushed to a production environment via workflow or independently "deployed" using our new publish action in the GUi.  This publish action will be available for all snapshots, enabling you to determine with snapshot should be pushed live.

What is the "normal way" to do this? (rsync op CIFS??)

Yes.  While you can push content using rsync, for Alfresco-Alfresco replication, your best bet is our new upcoming replication module.

If a website runs stand-alone in the live environment, should it use the API to access the WCM repository for dynamic operation (building a menu etc.)

You can either work directly off the CIFs interface or use Alfresco APIs.   For simple dynamic web pages and navigation (just sourcing one or two XMLs into a page, just generating a navbar off a directory structure), simply working off the CIFs interface may be the simplest most efficient approach.  The read performance of CIFs in run-time is exceptionally fast - it should be scalable for most apps.  If the CIFs interface doesn't work, yes, the APIs are the way to go.

If so, what API is best used (and delivers quick development) : foundation, JCR (no access to sandboxes yet), JSF components etc??

You'll want to use the AVM-specific APIs.  As you note, we do not support a JCR interface yet for web projects; that will be forthcoming in the next few months.

Should it be possible to run the Alfresco 2 WCM BETA example website (with PressReleasesBean etc.) outside the virtualisation server?

Yes.  The sample website is a normal web app that should be deployable to any web container.  In this manner, any web app you build and deploy from Alfresco doesn't necessarily have to get served by the virt server - really you can deploy to any app server for your run-time environment.

[mattruby]

Hi Kevin,

Will static deployments be supported in the 2.0.1 release?

Is the expectation for all "deployed" content to be pushed to remote Alfresco instances?

[sirclueless]

Hi kvc

you said: With our GA release this week, we will be including an updated sample site along with a how-to guide for building a basic dynamic site.


Okay . That`s sounds really good. But where can I find the how-to guide ??

Thanks for your help.

[kvc]

Hi Kevin,

Will static deployments be supported in the 2.0.1 release?

Is the expectation for all "deployed" content to be pushed to remote Alfresco instances?

Matt:  Our 2.0.1 release will provide support for Alfresco –> Alfresco deployment and provide GUI integration so that you can deploy or rollback to any Staging snapshot.  2.0.1 is anticipated around mid-March.

Our 2.1 release (target May) will add support for Alfresco –> Remote File Server.  This takes a bit of additional work, as we need to write a server to act as a deployment agent on your remote servers.

In the interim, you can simply deploy to a remote Alfresco server and mount the deployed snapshot via CIFS and just treat it like a normal file-system.  In our internal tests, our CIFS read performance on Linux is roughly 75% the speed of a normal file system, and so performance should be quite good.

Kevin

[smg]

Congratulations for the amazing work done!
I also need some guidance on the way to deploy a staged site to a production environment. The explanations in this forum are ok, but some additional how-to for the deployment, while waiting for the 2.0.1 release would be very welcome.
thanks.
sergio