A Reading List: High Availability for Alfresco ECM

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Karl

Start with watching the Alfresco hosted webinar: High Availability Clustering with Alfresco to get a high level overview.

Then read thru rivetlogic’s comprehensive page that includes notes on disaster recovery: Deploying HA Alfresco on Linux. This is mirrored on the AlfrescoWiki. Not sure which wiki page is definitive.

Finally, put it into practice with a working example by following Jeff Potts’s walk-thru of a simple set up to get a feel for it: Alfresco 3.1 clustering easier with JGroups.

Reference details:

AlfrescoWiki: Configuring JGroups and Alfresco Clusters

AlfrescoWiki: Cluster Configuration V2.1.3 and Later

Alfresco Webinar: High Scalability with Alfresco WCM (great information about various options)

Special thanks to Jeff Potts who answered a related query of mine on Twitter.

I’ll be sure to post progress here once I’ve a few working examples.

Reading List: Running Alfresco behind X

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Karl

Jeff D. Brown: Alfresco Integration with JBoss Portal

optaros labs: Alfresco Django Integration Screencast

optaros labs: Alfresco-Drupal Integration via CMIS (Screencast)

Jeff Potts Drupal-Alfresco Integration and Alfresco’s Move to the Front-End

content here: Drupal and Alfresco

AlfrescoWiki: Blog Publishing User Guide

Notes on the Alfresco Web Content Management Evaluation Guide

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Karl

This walk-thru requires 3.1 Enterprise or 3.2 Community as a prerequisite. Clean install of Alfresco seems a must. Network connection is required! Sometimes you need
to restart your machine (if you see a deploy or preview task ‘freeze up’ for
example). Note: this tutorial is far more comprehensive (and usable) than the WCM Forms Quick Tutorial posted to the Wiki. I wouldn’t waste your time with that.

Download the Web Content Management Evaluation Guide from:
http://www.alfresco.com/products/ecm/enttrial/files/getting_started_with_wcm_for_enterprise3_1.pdf

Add sample website to hosts file

127.0.0.1 admin.alfrescosample.www--sandbox.127-0-0-1.ip.alfrescodemo.net

Start Alfresco and virtual alfresco server

$ ./virtual_start.sh start
$ ./alf_start.sh start

All files required for evaluation guide are under ${ALFRESCO INSTALL DIRECTORY}/extras/wcm

Installing Alfresco on OSX – quick and dirty

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Karl

Note: These are terrible instructions – no security or any set up in regards to
making upgrades easy. But this gets you up and running fast.

Prerequisites: JDK 5.x, MySQL 5.x

First, insure there is no pre-existing alfresco database

$ mysql -u root -p <ENTER> <ENTER>
mysql> drop database alfresco;
mysql> exit
$ sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM stop {Enter OSX admin password} <ENTER>
$ sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start

Create the directory you are going to install alfresco into
```
$ mkdir /opt/alfresco
```
Download and extract Alfresco-Community-3.2-MacOSXInstall.tar.gz from Alfresco
```
$ tar xvf Alfresco-Community-3.2-MacOSXInstall.tar.gz 
```

Run the installer

$ ./Alfresco-Community-3.2-MacOSXInstall

Choose defaults until destination folder. Override that and select /opt/alfresco
When dialog asks for root password, leave blank, it is referring to MySQL
root password. When you click Next it will inform you that database
creation was successful.
After finishing, using terminal cd to the directory Alfresco was installed into:
```
$ cd /opt/alfresco
```
Fire it up:
```
$ ./alf_start.sh start
```
Fire up the virtual server
```
$./virtual_start.sh
```
First time start up can take up to 5 minutes. Give it time. Refresh
http://localhost:8080/alfresco/ every minute or so and then you should get the
default dashboard. Username/password admin/admin.
When finished, shut ‘er down.
```
$ ./alf_stop.sh
```
The virtual server too
```
$./virtual_stop.sh
```

CMS Related Links for Wednesday, July 1st 2009

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Karl

Content Here: Code moves forward. Content moves backward. – about the migration of code and content in various environments.

My Conference Presentation: “Just Put That In The Zip Code Field” – why content modeling is so important to a CMS project’s success, with evaluation and implementation tips. via Content Here.