[Zope-dev] New zope.org rollout and transition plan

[Brian Lloyd]

Hi all - 

At long last, we are preparing to 'go live' with a new and 
improved zope.org. The new site will put an architecture in 
place that will make it easier to maintain and improve the 
site.

We're planning to make the new site live as www.zope.org at 
the end of July. The current site will still be accessible as 
old.zope.org. We plan to keep the old site available for a 
reasonable amount of time to ensure that important content that 
may have been missed by the migration can be hand-moved, etc. 

We'll give plenty of notice before decommissioning the old 
instance.

Q: What does this mean for zope.org members?

   Generally, all membership info and most content will be 
   transitioned to the new site automatically.

   Due to the amount of content and the 'organic growth' of the 
   current zope.org over time however, there may be some bits of 
   content that are either missed or get broken in some subtle 
   way during transition.

   If you maintain product releases, articles or other content on 
   zope.org, it would be a good idea to check on it after the 
   transition. If you find things missing, you should be able to 
   find it on the old.zope.org site and add it manually to the new 
   site. If you find something broken and you don't know why, let 
   us know so we can fix it.

Q: Will there be some kind of 'public beta' period?

   Not per se. Experience has shown that it is hard to drum up the 
   critical mass of usage required to really uncover non-obvious issues 
   using a separate 'beta' site.

   In addition, zope.org presents a challenge in that you really need 
   a short and choreographed 'switchover' window due to the community-
   contribution nature of the site. 

   Members generally don't want to contribute their content twice (once 
   on a beta site and once on the 'real' site), and we also 
   need to go live quickly after a final content migration to minimize 
   the inconvenience for people who might contribute content in the window 
   between final migration and the launch of the new site.

Q: Will the transition be quick, painless and invisible?

   Ha ha - silly human. :) We know from experience during the last zope.org
   transition that there will a period of hand-fixing after the new site 
   goes live.

   Leaving the old site accessible during the transition will help with 
   any pain we experience.


I'll send another note when we finalize the dates for the final content 
migration and go-live date. I want to keep the window between these down 
to a day if possible to minimize disruptions.
   

Brian Lloyd        brian@zope.com
V.P. Engineering   540.361.1716              
Zope Corporation   http://www.zope.com