Der Freitag: A Use Case

How we built a newspaper website

in Plone

About the speakers● Gil Forcada● Timo Stollenwerk● Kees Hink

About Der Freitag● It's a printed newspaper● issued weekly● on Thursday● 15.000 copies across Germany● About 40 employees● Left-wing, liberal

Der Freitag Online● freitag.de● web-print integration● numbers?

– 53k articles (31k editorial), 330 comments a day, 14k members, 1041 authors, 15k visits daily, 11k unique visitors

● Team: Christian Schneider + speakers

Agile Development● Scrum● Pivotal Tracker

Dexterity

Dexterity

Membership● Login/Registration: z3c.form● No membrane● Dexterity member folder● Sync between member profile and folder with

event handlers● Behavior to adapt member properties● Registration should/could go into Plone core?

Front page● Folderish structure● “Link” objects that reference existing content● Custom views● Ability to override article title, description,

image● Inline management buttons● Drag-and-drop to reorder content

Comments● plone.app.discussion● Complex custom workflow● Blaming / editing / deleting comments● 3 community moderators● Most commented viewlet om front page● About 330 new comments each day● Allow/disallow discussion

– behavior => plone.app.dexterity– dexterity support => plone.app.discussion 2.2x???

Development● Git

– git merge --no-ff– git rebase -i– git pull -r

● Jenkins

Migration● Numbers

– 30k articles– 25k blog entries– 20k members– 350k comments

● Transmogrifier● MySQL rel DB => Plone● Daily non-incremental migration● Daily Jenkins job● much more work than anticipated, worked well though

Performance Tests● The Grinder● In Jenkins● Helped us identify performance issues (Diazo,

catalog)● Warm-up script after instance restart

Release● Stacks of VMs● A script to release

Production servers overview● physical server● delivery vms● 10 workers● 1 ZEO server● 1 monitoring vm (munin)● all errors sent as mails

Production server caveats● p.a.caching is wonderful● workers mem usage keeps growing always● really slow startup time

Servers● 3 in-house and 4 production servers● everything in virtual machines● and everything controlled by fabric● ~150 fabric tasks

Notifications● Shown in browser (“notification area”)● Example: “you have a new comment”● Deleted on click● Created by event handler● Storage: annotation on Member object● Settings

Evaluation● Plone rocks!● What more could you want?● Since you ask:

– member profiles, notifications, limit memory usage, way to run long and intensive tasks, replication with ZODB,

● Open Spaces