1. Case www.musiikkitalo.fi
Henri Sora ; Director, Technology & Services
Sami Pippuri; Project Manager
8.9.2011

2. The Helsinki Music
Centre
• The formal opening
ceremony of the Helsinki
Music Centre was held on
August 31, 2011
• The principal tenants of the
Music Centre are the
Helsinki Philharmonic
Orchestra, Radion
sinfoniaorkesteri RSO and
the world-renowned
Sibelius Academy
• At the heart of the Centre
is the Surround Concert
Hall, a capacious, 1704-seat
auditorium, reminiscent of
a vineyard. The Music
Centre boasts of six other
performance halls as well

3. The Project
• Competitive bidding for
the job of producing the
Centre’s web service
commenced on March 8,
2010
• The deadline for proposals
ended on April 7, 2010
• Ambientia was chosen as
the web service producer
in June 2010
• The first stage of the
project was completed on
time, according to
schedule, in early
September 2010

5. The challenge
presented

6. The challenge presented 1/3
• The Music Centre’s public website will be implemented with a
content-management system with an outsourcing of the technical
administration.
 Ambientia Business Platform Services will handle the
operation of the web service.
• The technology used in the implementation must have a lifespan
of at least five (5) years.
Liferay, the preferred technical/technological choice/solution

7. The challenge presented 2/3
• The content management system has got to be
flexible and vendor-independent in order to
allow for any future upgrade or development.
• Liferay, the preferred technical/technological
choice/solution
• The technical solution should be reliable and
should provide/offer facilities with which to
integrate different databases and server
platforms.
Liferay delivers once again

8. The challenge presented 3/3
• The technical platform should not be bound up with the
Music Centre’s technical environment.
 Ambientia offers the administration as a service
• It may be the case that the functionalities of the
technical environment cannot be implemented with the
content management system, in which case the
functionalities will be customised in conjunction with
the implementation; thereafter, they will be integrated
both as part of the web site and into the administration
interface of the content management system.
Ambientia’s project work department

9. The technology

10. The technology
- A single virtual
machine, including:
- Liferay Portal
Enterprise Edition
5.2 EE SP4
- MySQL
- Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5

11. The hosting environment
• Ambientia’s Business
Platform Services
department
• Nothing less than a
duplicated
VMware-
environment both in
Helsinki and in
Hämeenlinna

12. The challenges

13. The challenges we are currently
facing
• From day one, the volume of traffic directed
at the service impacted the efficiency of the
hosting environment. It still presents itself as a
slow service.
• It takes a really long time for the thumbnails
to generate. There’s a Liferay bug report that's
currently open concerning this issue.

14. The demonstration of
the service

15. The front page of the Music Centre
The key element of the front page of the web site
is the calendar of events.

16. The front page of the Sibelius Academy
The same calendar portlets are also in use on the
Sibelius Academy web site.

17. Events on the front page of the
Music Centre’s Web Site
On the front page there are facilities for browsing and
searching for events. Upcoming events are also lifted to this
page. The settings for content lifts are easily modifiable.

18. The event portlets on the front page of
the Sibelius Academy’s web site
The corresponding portlets are in use on the
Sibelius Academy’s web site with some small
changes.

19. The event page
The view of a single event has been implemented in
the same way, only tailored slightly.

20. Managing the Events
Events may be added in three languages with a
guiding event-management portlet.
The features of the portlet are 1) timed publication;
2) mass publication and mass deletion; and also 3)
comprehensive search.

21. Managing the Events
It’s also possible to add timed messages per
organiser – messages which are always visible on
the pages of the specific organiser in question.

22. News
The web site introduces news
portlets implemented by Ambientia;
the portlets make news
management, display and lifts easy
and comprehensive on the web site.

23. News
The web site introduces news
portlets implemented by Ambientia;
the portlets make news
management, display and lifts easy
and comprehensive on the web site.

24. News
The web site introduces news
portlets implemented by Ambientia;
the portlets make news
management, display and lifts easy
and comprehensive on the web site.

25. Editing the news
The editing of the news is
centralized in one location. The
features of the edit interface are 1)
timed publication; 2) archiving; 3)
version control; and 4) automatic
image-size editing.

26. The donations portlet
The web site has a donations portlet ensemble
that is connected to the online payment
interface of Finnish banks. The portlets make it
possible to publish, manage and follow up with
the donors and their donations.

27. The donations portlet

28. Invitations
There are several smaller schemes on the web
site, for example, the invitation scheme. It works
almost the same as the traditional Tell-A-Friend–
implementation, but it’s directed at the Music
Centre’s fundraising endeavours.

29. Regular web articles
Many of the features are
implemented by editing
Liferay’s regular article
template.

30. The Asset publisher
There are many different roles
for the asset publisher...

31. Basic portlets
Introducing the web site: Of course there are
many other basic portlets that have been put to
good use on the web site, i.e articles
1) and 2)

32. Stop

33. Any Questions
about…
- The Music
Centre?
- Ambientia?
- Liferay?
Musiikkitalo/Arno Chapelle own the rights to all the photographs included in the
presentation.

34. Thank
you!