Planning with Drupal in mind



Thanks to Owen and the sysadmin and infrastructure teams, a copy of the
files of the Drupal-based http://guadectest.ourproject.org/ is placed in
the GNOME servers. I have been given a shell account and stro has been
suggested to request an account so he can be given shell access as well
[1]. stro has been of huge help setting up the guadec test site.

But... have I said thank you to Owen, Ross the sysadmin and the
infrastructure teams. Well, just in case: THANK YOU. :)  I hope this
step will ease the progress in some gnome-web mid-term issues that have
sysadmin&infrastructure implications.

We will have guadec.org running on Drupal as soon as possible [2]. As
mentioned yesterday in #webhackers, once the site is stable we will be
in position to start mounting other Drupal instances (sites) in a
metadrupal infrastructure, This means:

- same software underneath: one patch patches all the sites, one upgrade
upgrades all the sites. Every site can activate the modules they need
(i.e. gallery, forum, calendar, books...) independently of the modules
activated by other sites.

- some data shared: for instance, just one user database meaning just
one login&psw to access all the sites, search tool covering all the
sites contents, etc.

- some data not shared: at the will of every site i.e. contents, themes
(layout), user preferences...


Recommended steps:

1 - Setting since the very beginning a single user database to be shared
by the *.gnome.org drupal-based subsites. This means the guadec.org site
will be already a Drupal instance and the users data will be in a main
database instead of a guadec only.

2 - Doing the already decided move of gnomedesktop.org site to the GNOME
servers. Their users will be added to the main database.

3 - Investigating the integration (not platform migration) of
art.gnome.org to the shared backend. Priority number 1 are users merged
into the main database.

4 - Start prototiping the gnome.org revamp on a Drupal instance already
with a backend shared with guadec and gnomedesktop.

5 - Having an own instance for foundation.gnome.org to manage key
modules such as CiviCRM or donations/payment-platform

6 - Investigate how to integrate content search through all the
*.gnome.org site, either by expanding the Drupal search engine database
either findind cross-plaform solutions.

7 - Investigate/discuss if it's worth to look for ways to integrate the
users from other *.gnome.org applications.

8 - See what's going on with gnomesupport.org and other GNOME rleated
projects we want to share some degree of integration (I'm a total
ignorant of their relation with the GNOME project). They can go from
sharing users only to a complete migration i.e. http://drupal.org/node/23306

None of this steps blocks the progress of any site development,
maintenance or upgrade. Content, layout, Drupal software and
integration/migration tasks can be managed completely separate.

Of course all these steps need to be done carefully, accomplishing the
standards of sysadmin and infrastructures and of course responding to
the needs and interest of the website admins and teams affected and
involved.

[1]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-infrastructure/2005-December/msg00030.html

[2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/guadec-list/2005-December/msg00085.html

-- 
Quim Gil - http://desdeamericaconamor.org

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