what shall be served by a cms?

What shall be served by a CMS ? Just editorial content

Basel, September 2013 Thomas Körner

… experiences of a real project

Agenda

!  Project Scope

!  Objectives

!  Technical Wrap Up

!  Experiences

What shall be served by a CMS kreuzwerker 2

Agenda

!  Project Scope

!  Objectives


!  Experiences

kreuzwerker 3 What shall be served by a CMS

Social Community Platform of one of the biggest cruise lines in Germany !  user generated content as travelogues, blogs,

photo galleries, video albums !  private messaging !  questions and answer module !  contests, polls and games !  commenting, likes

Project Scope


Technical Re-Invest !  tight coupling of CMS and community functions

prevented migration to new Drupal version !  CMS change according to the customers web

publishing strategy !  usage of a custom digital asset management

system

Project Scope


Agenda

!  Project Scope

!  Objectives


!  Experiences


Objectives

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Customer‘s Main Objectives. Experiencing a technical dead end in regard of CMS updates

due to heavy customization expandability as well as easy updatability was in the customer’s focus.

High Responsive

Easy to Extend

Easy to Update

Magnolia

Sync

of

user

content

Custom DAM

What shall be served by a CMS

Strategy

Magnolia

Ruby on Rails

Widget Approach

Varnish

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1

!  limit custom code in the CMS

Updatability

!  state of the art web framework to cover business requirements

Expandability

!  fragment caching of static content.

Responsiveness

!  Web Publishing Strategy

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1


CMS Functions

!  Design & Branding !  navigation bar !  footer !  teaser

!  Configuration !  polls !  games

!  Editorial Content !  static pages (e.g. Impressum) !  information about cruises, staff, etc.

!  Administration !  process based publication

CMS


Application Functions

!  Asset Management !  photos / videos !  travelogues !  galleries

!  Community Functions !  votes/likes !  private messaging !  friendships

Ruby on Rails

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!  Extensions !  map features !  poll/game logic

!  User Management !  accounts !  personal spaces


Agenda

!  Project Scope

!  Objectives


!  Experiences


Architectural Sketch

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The production system is deployed on two hosts routed by a load balancer. Each host provides its own varnish, a public CMS instance and a Rails application instance. !  Varnish

!  routing by selecting the appropriate backend

!  ESI … Edge Side Includes !  Backends

!  CMS !  Rails Application


!  fixed page layout in regard of branding

!  application logic dependent layout for content area

!  limited number of AJAX calls

Rails Application

Rendering Master ? Rails App was set to be the rendering master for all pages focusing on user generated content CMS was set to be the rendering master for all static pages as well as pages requiring free editorial layouts (e.g. polls, games).

!  embedding application logic as widget requires heavy use of AJAX

!  limited editorial freedom regarding application pages

CMS


Rendering Master – Rails App’



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ESI



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ESI



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ESI



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ESI



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ESI


Rendering Master – CMS


Rendering Master – CMS

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ESI

ESI


!  branding !  editorial content !  games !  polls

!  moderation of comments !  company blogs (editorial

content) !  user generated content !  assessment of polls / games

Rails Application CMS

Administration

SSO to ease the burden of two applications


SSO between CMS and Rails App

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!  missing company SSO !  external editors

Pre-Condition

CMS login authenticates user in the Rails Apps


Key: Magnolia Filter Chain

… common servlet filter … back door login/logout code encapsulated … update compatible

Pitfalls:

!  Cross Site Protection Mechanism of Rails !  X-CSRF Token !  Cookie

!  Storage of Rails App Authentication Cookie

SSO between CMS and Rails App


Games & Polls

!  game runtime resides in Rails App via participation widgets, which allow the user interaction

!  widget is embedded into the game/poll CMS page via ESI

!  game assessment is done via admin interface (active admin)

Rails App

!  game configuration is done in the CMS !  start and end of participation !  number of participation

attempts !  intro texts, images etc. !  layout of pages

!  winner announcement by embedding announcement widgets via ids

CMS


Games & Polls Interaction CMS "# Rails (1/3)

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Game Setup

game template !  supports game

container including various rails widgets, common CMS editorial content paragraphs

Publish Game

game config

!  hidden form parameter secured by shared secret

!  first request creates game in Rails DB

Game Runtime

game content

!  assets and users only known to Rails

!  depiction on CMS pages via widgets


Games & Polls Interaction CMS "# Rails (2/3)

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Game Assessment

administration/assessment !  Rails Active

Admin pages

Winner Announcement

announcement

!  CMS paragraph configuration via user and asset ids known only to rails

!  widget approach

Game Removal

game container deletion

!  Rails backend has to be informed about container removal


Games & Polls Removal of the Game

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!  a new version of a page is created when pushing

changes from author to public !  check predecessor version for game identifiers not

included in current page !  de-activate polls in rails via HTTP GET Request

(signature in header secures request) !  synchronous call


Agenda

!  Project Scope

!  Objectives


!  Experiences


Experiences

!  agile development framework for application logic

!  complex development setup

Strengths

!  easy adding of new features without CMS know how

!  re-use of once developed modules

!  abstraction level !  learning curve of

development team

Opportunities Threats

Weaknesses +

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+

–

–


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Experiences Development Setup

!  automated setup of target platform via vagrant on top of Virtual Box on each developer machine !  Mac OS vs. Linux machines

!  provisioning of vagrant box via puppet !  automated deployment of Rails App via rake !  automated deployment of CMS via maven and

shell scripts


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!  prolonged development cycle due to deployment overhead !  mocking of CMS in Rails part !  ignoring Rails calls in CMS

!  additional time for integration tests


!  setup of infrastructure with small team before development phase

!  continuous monitoring of setup

!  re-use of technology in staging and production area

!  continuous mentoring of development & test team

!  continuous integration by testing team

!  independent development due to sparse mocking

Continuous Education & QM Ramp Up

additional operational costs covered by advantages in the long term

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Thomas Körner

Thanks, for your attention

mail: [email protected]

website:

www.kreuzwerker.de


what shall be served by a cms?

Technology