[development] Staging content to production servers

[John VanDyk]

*cough* publish.module subscribe.module *cough*

>>Alan -- thanks for this write up. I think the staging/production
>>server issue is one that merits attention. A lot of times, it means
>>we're running without a safety net -- it is too hard to merge
>>(config, content) changes between a dev site and a live site...so
>>lots of people just don't, or do extra work in re-doing the same
>>config steps on a live site.
>
>Boris/Alan
>
>I have had clients ask me on this as well. The idea is to have a production
>server than no one posts content to directly, and a staging server where
>content is posted, edited, refined, ..etc. Then a button is clicked to push
>selected content from the staging to the production.
>
>Perhaps a starting point would be something similar to the Node Import/Export
>that Jeremy Epstein is writing as part of SoC.
>
>If this is coupled with:
>
>a) an API that modules can use to push/pull their own data along with
>what core does.
>
>b) an XML RPC or some other protocol for sending the data from one
>server to the other.
>
>c) Users and roles as well.
>
>d) all of the above is configurable (push content only, content + comments,
>users only, user + roles, all the above)
>
>If this happens, we can have truly federated servers and other neat things.
>For example, this can be the solution for sharing of users and roles across
>sites. If the sites are multi site on the same physical server, or across the
>globe, it will still work.
>
>Just some thoughts.