[support] Staging

[Christopher M. Jones]

Yea, I turned right around on the cross post. Sorry.

And though I haven't had a chance to review the threads you cited, let 
me just say that I suspected this issue would be difficult, even before 
I started looking into it. I just hope it doesn't break the deal with my 
company. I've already done a mockup template, and they're really excited.

So maybe the best thing is to run two sites. The live site gets updated 
with new content. Content we create for the client's review is left 
unpublished until the client approves it. I'm pretty sure I've seen 
modules to automate this. A dev site is maintained with a mirror of the 
live site's database. Changes to the dev site are only to the template 
files, which is updated on the live site via svn. It's not what we want, 
but if I can sell it then it might be the easiest, safest solution.

Comments?

Zohar Stolar wrote:
> Don't cross-post Christopher.
> Since you raised this issue, it has been extensively discussed on the 
> development list (see threads: "Solving the dev->staging->live problem" 
> and "Unique/Random IDs and drupal")
> 
> 
> 
> Christopher M. Jones wrote:
> 
>> Thanks, Zohar.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I see that this module is available only for 5.x. We 
>> want to use 6.x. Still, it's an excellent lead, though I doubt my 
>> company wants to pay me to port that module to 6.x. Maybe we should 
>> step down to 5.x.
>>
>> Also, I'll forward my message on to the dev list, as you suggested.
>>
>> Zohar Stolar - Linnovate wrote:
>>> Hi Christopher,
>>>
>>>
>>> First of all, I advise you to consider cross-posting the mail in the 
>>> development list. While you need a straight answer, which is kind of 
>>> a support request, your insights might make others re-think how 
>>> Drupal's database is built, and how we can make it (even) easier to 
>>> develop Drupal site over many years.
>>>
>>>
>>> Secondly, I was wondering with yhager about having a BoF meeting in 
>>> Szeged, since the situation you are experiencing is one of the most 
>>> common issues with Drupal development. Since Configuration and 
>>> Content are kept on the same DB, it is practically impossible to 
>>> export only some of the data (for example only content, or only 
>>> configuration).
>>>
>>> We were wondering how come everyone is suffering, and no one speaks 
>>> :)  We finally let go of the idea.
>>>
>>>
>>> However, if there is enough interest, maybe we can still organize a 
>>> BoF in Szeged. And that's the second reason why I think you should 
>>> cross-post in the dev list - maybe we'll see that there is enough man 
>>> power to advance in this matter soon.
>>>
>>>
>>> oh... and... sorry for the situation you're in, Unfortunately, I 
>>> don't have a winning advice ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>> Zohar Stolar
>>> Linnovate - Community Frameworks
>>> zohar at linnovate.net
>>> http://www.linnovate.net
>>> Tel. +972-77-5345-704
>>> Cel. +972-52-8348-278
>>> Fax. +972-72-2500-882
>>> SkypeID: zstolar
>>> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/drupal
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Christopher M. Jones wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm looking for a decent approach to staging a drupal site. The 
>>>> production site will be a collaborative authoring project, with 
>>>> forums, blogs, and lots of media. The client will have access to 
>>>> this site, and will be maintaining some of the content. Other 
>>>> content will be maintained by us.
>>>>
>>>> The development company that hosts this project prefers to make all 
>>>> of their changes, both to content and templates, in a testing 
>>>> environment. Once their client has approved the changes, they like 
>>>> to 'push' them to production.
>>>>
>>>> However, while these changes are taking place, the client may be 
>>>> administering forums and writing blog posts in the -production- 
>>>> version.
>>>>
>>>> To further complicate things, my company wants a three-stage cycle. 
>>>> They want a dev site, where they make changes for in-house review, 
>>>> which they then push to testing for client review before everything 
>>>> is pushed to production.
>>>>
>>>> I'm unsure how to approach this. The site in question has always 
>>>> been static html created in Dreamweaver. At some point they started 
>>>> adding other things, so now there are two wordpress blogs, and two 
>>>> phpbb forums. The forums and blogs presently are excepted from the 
>>>> development cycle. They simply appear to be part of the site, 
>>>> because their templates have been designed so. But that means that 
>>>> we've got to propagate template changes across five templates. 
>>>> Things are breaking constantly, and this is why I piped up to them 
>>>> about drupal.
>>>>
>>>> I've seen a lot of discussion about this topic, but I really need 
>>>> some hard answers. What should I do?
>>>>
>>>> I've seen the Staging module for 6.x. Is it safe to use? If so, then 
>>>> we could use that for the database. Templates could be pushed with 
>>>> rsync or svn... whatever. But would this work two ways? Could we 
>>>> sync the dev / testing sites to the production site, then sync the 
>>>> other way? Would we need to?
>>>>
>>>> Also, I envision using a multisite environment so that all sites 
>>>> share the same modules, media, etc, but use different templates.
>>>>
>>>> I desperately need the detailed advice of someone with experience, 
>>>> here.
>>>>   
>