1. Drupal at Multnomah County
Building a Drupal Ecosystem for
Public and Internal Websites
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Presented by
Joshua Mitchell
IT Enterprise/Web Application
Services Manager

2. The story so far
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Key launches:
1. Public website (multco.us)
2. Intranet (commons.multco.us)
3. Apps platform (*.apps.multco.us)
4. Library (multcolib.org
5. Animal Services (multcopets.org)
!
Now it’s time for upgrades

4. The story so far
•
Key launches:
1. Public website (multco.us)
2. Intranet (commons.multco.us)
3. Apps platform (*.apps.multco.us)
4. Library (multcolib.org)
5. Animal Services (multcopets.org)
Now it’s time for upgrades

6. The story so far
•
Key launches:
1. Public website (multco.us)
2. Intranet (commons.multco.us)
3. Apps platform (*.apps.multco.us)
4. Library (multcolib.org)
5. Animal Services (multcopets.org)
Now it’s time for upgrades

7. Apps Platform
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Aegir Multisite installation
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Distributed development
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Low cost of entry for an internal application
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Includes a couple external applications

8. The story so far
•
Key launches:
1. Public website (multco.us)
2. Intranet (commons.multco.us)
3. Apps platform (*.apps.multco.us)
4. Library (multcolib.org)
5. Animal Services (multcopets.org)
Now it’s time for upgrades

10. The story so far
•
Key launches:
1. Public website (multco.us)
2. Intranet (commons.multco.us)
3. Apps platform (*.apps.multco.us)
4. Library (multcolib.org)
5. Animal Services (multcopets.org)
Now it’s time for upgrades

12. The story so far
•
Key launches:
1. Public website (multco.us)
2. Intranet (commons.multco.us)
3. Apps platform (*.apps.multco.us)
4. Library (multcolib.org)
5. Animal Services (multcopets.org)
Now it’s time for upgrades

13. Draft

14. What does it take?
What does it take, in an environment with no open source software or
expertise, to launch and support 15 Drupal production Drupal sites in 3.5
years?
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Executive buy in
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Rapid innovation through piloting
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Hiring and/or building internal talent
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Code deployment and change management

15. Executive Buy-in
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It’s easier now… the White House
project made this conversation easier
to have with your CIO.
!
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Show the lower cost of licensing
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Highlight the big wins by other
organizations
•
Talk up the rapid innovation that is
triggered by contributed modules

16. Executive Buy-in
•
It’s easier now… the White House
project made this conversation easier
to have with your CIO.
!
•
Show the lower cost of licensing
•
Highlight the big wins by other
organizations
•
Talk up the rapid innovation that is
triggered by contributed modules

17. Innovate through pilot projects

18. Innovate through pilot projects
1. Ask for a pilot

19. Innovate through pilot projects
1. Ask for a pilot
2. Pick something that is winnable

20. Innovate through pilot projects
1. Ask for a pilot
2. Pick something that is winnable
3. Knock it out of the park

21. Innovate through pilot projects
1. Ask for a pilot
2. Pick something that is winnable
3. Knock it out of the park
4. Repeat

22. Hiring and/or building internal talent

23. Hiring and/or building internal talent
Should you hire or to train up your existing staff?

24. Hiring and/or building internal talent
Should you hire or to train up your existing staff?
Do both!

25. Hiring and/or building internal talent
Should you hire or to train up your existing staff?
Do both!
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Find Drupal partners to help with training
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Send your staff to DrupalCon (or BAD Camp, PNWDS, etc)
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If you cannot hire for Drupal, hire for open source passion and willingness to learn Drupal.
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Highlight the benefits of working for your organization (pay is not the only draw)

26. Code deployment
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Get as much of your build as possible into code.
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Get your code in source control—preferably Git.
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Figure out your deployment process. (Database down, code up)
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Development (local or Dev server)
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Integration or QAT (and test heavily)
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UAT (and test heavily)
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Production
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Automate your code pushes.
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Assign build masters to facilitate communication.

27. Git workflow
Pull from master to multiple dev branches. When code is pushed (committed) to master, it goes to our QAT/
integration server. We then deploy code to UAT and then Production.
Master
Dev
Feature 1
Feature 2

28. Change management

29. Change management
γνῶθι σεαυτόν (Greek for “know thyself”)

30. Change management
γνῶθι σεαυτόν (Greek for “know thyself”)
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Your customers need to know what you plan to do—even if you don’t
think it will result in an outage.
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Take pride in high availability.
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Plan your patch cycles.
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When is a security update necessary versus a nice to have?
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Review security updates for core within 72 hours.
Decide update philosophy.
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Build to the cutting edge and update to the oldest viable system.

31. Drupal at Multnomah County // Questions
Questions?