Smeal migrated its first site to Plone 2.0.5 in the Summer of 2006 - since then, we have migrated and created 10 production sites that combined receive on average over 100k visitors a month. I will talk about the challenges encountered and lessons learned through site migrations, hardware conversions, Plone upgrades, and redesigns. I will also be discussing where we stand today and our strategy for moving forward with special focus on administrative & maintenance functions and policies.

1. Plone@Smeal
Three Years Later

2. Guy C. Heckman
Systems Design Specialist
Research, Instruction, & Information Technology (RIIT) Group
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
gch10@psu.edu
IRC: guy_heckman or gch10
Twitter: cyvaquero
http://www.smeal.psu.edu
http://weblion.psu.edu/about/case-studies/smeal-college-of-business
NOT a Keynote expert.

3. Smeal Web Team
• Guy Heckman - Systems Design Specialist
• Erin Weber - Web Designer
• Beth Phillips - Web Developer
• PHP Team - Arun Kapil, Lan Wei, Sudhanshu Thanedar
• Currently all web apps are PHP after a long effort to
consolidate from ColdFusion, Perl, & Java

4. Pre-Plone Environment
• Top-down mandate that the web is the
primary vehicle for marketing & information
distribution
• Two major websites - WWW (marketing) & Intranet
(everything else). Several small one-off websites for
various events and projects.
• ~ 55 Content Contributors
• ~ 6.5K pieces of content (pages, images, & pdf’s)
• ~ 3K updates a year

5. Pre-Plone Architecture
Load Balancer
Apache Apache
Contribute TSM
DFS
Clients Backup

6. Pre-Plone Workflow
Web Team
Contributors Performs Technical
Marketing
Create/Edit Review (Style, Content Published
Performs Content
Content on Test Layout, etc.) and to Production Site
Review
Site Makes Appropriate
Changes

7. Existing Problems
• Bottlenecks in the workflow.
• Technical knowledge of HTML required of non-technical users.
• Code clean-up by Web Team almost always required.
• Dependency on external systems. Outage of PSU DFS = Site
Outage.
• No version control & lengthy data recovery times.
• Structural changes were problematic, limiting redesign efforts.
• Separate proprietary license required for each contributor = $$$
• Content maintenance overshadowed all development & innovation.

8. Why Plone?
• Proposals from commercial CMS vendors for the desired features
ranged from $90K - $200K for roll-out of initial production site.
• Limitations/poor reviews of some of the commercial CMS’s in use
at the University by developers who had to work with them.
• Large feature set. Plone contained certain features we required
out-of-box, these were typically only available on the higher end
commercial solutions or as add-ons.
• Flexibility and extensibility. We ‘own’ the code. Later
development on commercial solutions typically involved
renegotiation and additional costs.
• The formation of WebLion from the PSU ZUG.

9. Initial Plone Deployment
in Plone 2.0
• Content was already in a standard format facilitating
the use of WebLion’s WebSlinger product to import
content from files into Plone.
• Several custom Products (developed with WebLion).
• Chose to use ATContentTypes vs. built-in CMF
types with an eye on the upcoming Plone 2.5
release.
• Kept the current design.
• Conversion Timeline
• Started converting site May 2006.
• Switchover completed mid-July 2006.

10. Site Redesign
& Plone Upgrade to 2.5
• New features of Plone 2.5 solved most
custom component requirements
• Proposed design introduced new challenges.
• Migration Timeline:
• Late August 2006 - started development
of custom components and content
migration planning.
• Late September 2006 - Started content
migration.
• Late October 2006 - New site design in
Plone 2.5 launched.

11. Expansion in Plone 2.5
• Migrated:
intranet.smeal.psu.edu
• Launched:
Data Resources Program (DRP)
Database of research resources for Business
grad students.
FTCAP Site
Informational site for incoming students.
RIIT Group Site
Smeal IT/Facilities information site
Student Exchange Site
Student information site
Technology In Business Schools (TBS) Roundtable
Conference site for Business School CIO’s.

12. Plone Upgrade to 3.1
• Utilized zc.buildout for managing environment.
• Minimized 3rd Party Product Dependencies.
• Migrated sites in order of complexity starting with the TBS site. Finished
with WWW.
• DRP was left in place as it was to be rolled into an upcoming site (ISBM).
• Much smoother - much less painful.
• Migration Timeline
• Started conversion in January 2008.
• Switchover completed mid-July 2008.

13. Expansion in Plone 3.1
• Redesigned the Student Exchange
• Launched Student Exchange sites for
specific programs - Undergrad, MBA,
& Executive MBA
• Launched Institute for the Study of
Business Markets (incorporated DRP)
• Redesigned WWW
• Switched backend architecture from
IBM Virtualization to VMware Cluster
on Dell PowerEdge 2970’s

14. Current Environment
• Four major websites - WWW (marketing) & Three
Student Exchanges. Eight smaller limited scope websites.
• ~ 85 Content Contributors
• ~ 14K pieces of content (pages, images, & pdf’s)
• ~ 7K updates a year

15. Current Architecture
nginx (http) apache
(CoSign)
Squid Squid Squid
Zope/Plone
Zope/Plone Zope/Plone
(student
(www) (all other)
exchanges)

16. Current Workflow
Contributors
Create/Edit Content Published
Content on Test to Production Site
Site
Marketing
Performs Content
Review

17. Lessons Learned
• Chances are that your site is a lot more complicated than you realize
- not everything will translate to the Plone environment smoothly.
• Avoid simultaneous redesign and upgrade at all costs. If the higher
ups demand it - threaten to quit (depending on the economy, of
course).
• Consider phased migration for large sites (section by section).
• Some things are best solved through policy vs. programming.
• See T. Kim Nguyen’s recommendations from his Rolling Out Plone to
a Campus: a Grass Roots Effort
• Third party products mean external limitations on migration and
upgrades. Choose wisely.

18. Lessons Learned
(continued)
• KISS - Creative reuse of out-of-box features and content types
can solve many challenges.
• File-based themes are a double-edged sword.
• Not a fan of the current viewlet manager implementation.
• Utilize zc.buildout to create a standard Zope/Plone setup.
• repozo.py & rsync are your best friends.
• Virtualization is too.
• Keep a long view.
• Flexibility is the key to happiness.

19. Questions?
Birds of a Feather?

20. Guy C. Heckman
Systems Design Specialist
Research, Instruction, & Information Technology (RIIT) Group
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
gch10@psu.edu
IRC: guy_heckman or gch10
Twitter: cyvaquero
http://www.smeal.psu.edu
http://weblion.psu.edu/about/case-studies/smeal-college-of-business