Alfresco WCM Really Simple Web Content Management

Ben Hagan www.alfresco.com

Agenda
Alfresco WCM Overview Types of supported users Web Forms File System Projection User Roles Workflow Sandboxes

Virtualisation Server Static vs Dynamic File System Receiver Alfresco Server Receiver Snapshots Demonstration

Alfresco WCM

Content Production Production Model

Sandboxes Transparent Layers

Workflow Roles Virtualisation File system Projection

Content Delivery Deployment Alfresco Runtimes Static vs Dynamic Runtimes

What types of users are supported?

Web Designers / Developers Support any tool for authoring, development Support any number, type of website Integrated staging, preview, and deployment Application Developers Code versioning, testing, staging Content Managers / Web Publishers XML-based publishing, transformation, preview Content Reviewers Email-based task notification, management Content Contributors Drag-and-drop Word document Automatic transformation, publishing to Web

Architects

What types of users are supported?

Repository

Template Content Model

Designers

Authors

Alfresco WCM

Content Production

Content Authoring - Web Forms

Web Forms

Content Authoring - Web Forms

Web Forms XML Schema XForms Templates (XSLT, Freemarker, XSL-FO, Custom) T Multi-channel output (renditions) M

Content Authoring - Web Forms

Content Author
Web Form
Content Type XML Schema XSD File

Alfresco WCM

Multi Channel Template Rendition

Mobile

Web

Print

Content Authoring - Web Forms

Content Template

Content with templates Separates content from

presentation. Templates can change independent of content.

Applied statically in

Alfresco just after the content is authored.

Pre-baked

Filesystem Projection

CIFS Interface Webdav FTP Editorial tool of choice Dreamweaver Eclipse Notepad etc

Roles
Editorial Power
Content Manager Content Publisher Content Contributor Content Reviewer
Role
Content Manager Content Publisher Content Contributor Content Reviewer

Relative User Population

Few Some Many Implementation Dependent

Workflow

Serial and parallel review configurable OOTB Tasks Task notification task list Contain an entire change set Review layers virtualization server Reviewers see in-context view of users changes against current site Workflow configuration Workflows can be configured for each form or for any arbitrary set of non-form assets

Sandboxes
Staging Sandbox

User Sandbox Preview, undo, check links for individual updates and sites Staging Sandbox Preview all approved updates Review snapshots ( (previous versions) Revert to previous Content edited in isolation Content must be approved before merging with staging sandbox. Preview with virtualized web server.

Repository

User Sandboxes

Sandboxes Cont..

User sandboxes

Sandboxes under the covers..

A user sandbox acts like a sheet of glass sitting on top of the

staging sandbox.
Until modified, any object (file or folder) viewed in a user sandbox is

actually seen directly in the staging sandbox, as if through glass.

When modified, the object is copied into the user sandbox and the

modifications saved there. The original version remains unchanged in the staging sandbox.
Upon successful completion of workflow, the modified version of the

object is promoted into the staging sandbox, replacing the version that was previously there.

Virtualization

Isolated preview environment for every user sandbox and the staging sandbox Users only see their changes No physical servers required S Supports preview of modified content & code (JSP pages, class files, jars) Minimizes in-memory footprint

Virtualization Cont..

How is it used? Preview sandbox Preview a single content asset

Alfresco WCM

Content Delivery

Approve and deploy

Authoring Sandbox
Change Sets

Forms-based XML capture Email-based production

workflow

In-context testing Whole website versioning Code and content development

Preview Sandbox
Change Sets

Parallel branching and merging Static or dynamic deployment

Staging Sandbox

to one or more servers automated updates

Dependency management and

Deployment

Static or Dynamic?
The single most significant decision when planning a web content management solution is whether the front end web site will be static or dynamic. This decision impacts virtually everything else in the implementation: Static Dynamic
Web servers Submission time Filesystem (FSR) Limited Ultimate Application servers Request time Alfresco Runtime (ASR) Unlimited Less than static

Delivery technology Page compositing Deployment mechanism Personalization Performance Application developer skillsets

Freemarker, XSLT, XSLT-FO Any web technology

Delivery Environment
Intelligent File System Receiver (FSR)

Delivering static content e.g. via Apache Search User generated content

Dynamic Website Alfresco Server Receiver (ASR)

Firewall

Deploy

FSR Or ASR

File System Receiver (FSR)

Standalone application installed on delivery server(s) Allows files to be deployed to the remote machine using

the in-built deployment functionality

Much like a file copy

Alfresco Server Receiver (ASR)

Alfresco repository installed in the production web

environment
Why use an ASR?

As the search engine for the web site (applicable for both dynamic and static web sites) As a runtime content store that can be queried by a dynamic web application. Any other dynamic process personalization, User Generated Content etc

A Hybrid Model?
A third option exists that straddles the fence between static and

dynamic.
In this model you build the front end web site to support the dynamic

model, but leverage the static model wherever possible eg. pre-generating the HTML for page components that rarely vary between pages

Hybrid FSR and ASR

Internal Authoring Environment External Facing Site
Content (Alfresco Runtime or Static)

Improves performance by distributing content to different servers or CDNs (Akamai)

Images (Static)

Multimedia (Static)

Deployment

Manual or Automatic Deploy Staging to 1 or more: File System Receivers (FSR) Alfresco Server Receivers (ASR) Can also deploy any snapshots Monitoring and logging Transactional Incremental

Deployment Cont
Deployment is initiated from the Recent Snapshots list in the staging

sandbox:

Note: This option is not available unless deployment targets have

been configured for the web project

Deployment Cont
Select which target(s) to deploy a snapshot to:

Tracking Updates

Snapshots Rollback Deploy Each submission versions each file & parent directories Each submission snapshots staging sandbox Recovers deletions, moves, renames, etc. Allows website to rollback to any point in time

Alfresco WCM

Demonstration

Thank You

Really Simple Web Content Management

Ben Hagan www.alfresco.com

Call To Action
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