Multi Site/Tenant Setup?

I have a scenario where I need a content management system that will support multiple (read 200+) web sites off of a single application / database install. I found a couple of references to this in the archives, but nothing newer than Feb. of this year. Has there been any further discussion or plans around this? I would prefer not to reinvent the wheel if possible.

Thanks!
– Jeff

Hi Jeff this is something we would like to implement but have not started yet.

Sponsorship of this feature is welcomed

Luis Majano
CEO
Ortus Solutions, Corp
Toll Free/Fax: 1-888-557-8057
Direct: 909-248-3408
www.ortussolutions.com
Twitter: @lmajano, @ortussolutions

Luis,

I suspect the financial aspect of that is not in the cards right now, but I am not going to dismiss it outright. Is that kind of discussion something that should be taken offline?

I am also happy to be part of a group that leads this effort as I am going to end up putting this together one way or the other and I would like to be able to continue to leverage updates etc. with ContentBox rather than hacking it so badly that there is no backwards compatibility.

Thanks.

Email me at lmajano@ortussolutions.com to discuss

Luis Majano
CEO
Ortus Solutions, Corp
Toll Free/Fax: 1-888-557-8057
Direct: 909-248-3408
www.ortussolutions.com
Twitter: @lmajano, @ortussolutions

We have a substantial sized multi tenant cms we are at this point, planning on re-writing in coldbox... Obviously as is contentbox wouldn't work.

Have you guys discussed this anymore?
Would love to know where you are at.

Thanks

Actually that is not true about ContentBox, if each site has its own DB then ContentBox can set up to work in that manner.

Hi Jeff –

I am in the exact same position of porting our standard CMS (ours is written in Coldbox) over to Contentbox. Our CMS does support multiple sites, although most clients have just a handful (ie: web, mobile, and kiosk).

I’m happy to join this effort. This is one of the issues that prevents me from adopting Contentbox.

– Mike

Gavin, Multi-site use is something we want to do soon. The last time we talked about it, we wanted to make that be a commercial module. We would also love to have collaboration on designing it and the kinds of features it would need. Please feel free to share any specifics you’re looking for here for discussion.

Thanks!

~Brad

ColdBox Platform Evangelist
Ortus Solutions, Corp

E-mail: brad@coldbox.org
ColdBox Platform: http://www.coldbox.org
Blog: http://www.codersrevolution.com

Perhaps you should rethink trying to make that a commercial module when it seems to be such a basic requirement to ensure widespread adoption of the platform.

Gavin, let’s talk. I’ll be doing this as well one way or another.

  • Mike

Does google groups have a maximum post limit :slight_smile:
Ok, i’m going to rattle some of this off real quick. I hope it makes sense… getting the terminology right has been tough enough… and i’m still not sold on it.

We have 3 iterations in our own multi-tenant cms, and it works really well, we like it a lot, but obviously, you have to grow and change over time.

The last version we have has been modified from its base, and supports multi deployments (websites) per site (organization)… allowing a website, a mobile site, etc for a given Master Site / Organization. More below.

Right now, we have a serious set of upgrades we wanted to work into the system, but with all of the theming etc, it seems like a perfect time to re-evaluate how we do everything.
We decided to re-eval platforms, and Adrian Moreno and a few others have guided us to ColdBox.
The structure and conventions should make it easier for us to add more developers (we’re pretty busy but before we add more devs we want to define our workflow etc etc), and this should help us be more efficient, so ColdBox with its documentation and community is a good match.

We looked at contentbox, watched some of the videos etc, installed it, but without multi-tenant it would be tough to work around given our use of our own multi-tenant for several years now.

Some of the key points we enjoy with our current system.

A centralized location to maintain all the sites
Super Admin can manage sites / core config while logged into any of the sites
When you add a website it creates a datastore for that site (think of it as a company/organization datastore)
All sites share the same db, for ease to roll out updates etc.

If you want to add additional websites (deployments) for a datastore you can.
For example… we have one organization, a photographer, 1 datastore, 1 folder structure for assets, but we are adding a wedding website, a portraits website, a sports website, a mobile site, and an app, and they all pull from one data store, 1 folder structure. the only difference in the sites it the navigational structure + layout etc. When you add a blog widget, it pulls from one location, if they want to have a customer login, its shared across sites, and all their albums are shared across etc, so they dont need to update each sites’ albums etc, its all built into one “Organization” Datastore.

Modules are basically the model and admin features to maintain the modules, and then you can use widgets to use the models in your views.
Modules and widgets are configurable and you can select which organizations have access to what.
Widgets are created for platforms… so you have a blog recent posts widget… it might be desktop only, it might be desktop / email / fb / mobile
A lot of widgets are designed especially for mobile, like photo gallery widgets for mobile imitate native apps, like photoswipe.js

Because the platform has limitations, widgets are developed to focus the model to best fit that platform.
Facebook platform has limitations on how those widget works, and Email widgets are limited even more (limited css and js etc)… so you can throw content from your models into all sorts of platforms, just by using a widget specific to that platform.

The beauty of the way our system is setup, is its a centralized system, we can upgrade site functionality by checking or unchecking boxes.
Users can be shared across multiple sites,
Database updates are instant for all sites in the multi-tenant.

We are adding iis integration so when you add a site, it shells it out, configures all the mappings it needs, adds bindings… so a lower level staff member can install a site and have it ready to add content with only a few clicks in our admin, no need to remote into a box and know how to use iis or apache etc etc.
We’re adding dns automation to setup live dns binding (with supported api’s of course) so when a new site is added, we can setup a new subdomain without going to a separate system or remoting into a box.
We’re adding redirection for non canonicalized domains, so it can force your sub domains to your preferred subdomain… this can be done by just adding a list of domains (and subs) to a website, and selecting one as the main/default and the others get re-written for you.

We’re even considering a subscription based upsell system for those premium modules, so instead of us checking a box to give a site/org access to a module or a premium widget, they the end user or site manager can add it themselves, and pay a setup fee / and or monthly fee where appropriate.

Its our own system, so we have the power to do what we want, we have basically built a business management tool, so our accounting people can login and disable a site if they are not in good standing (although i’m in favor of automating it all of course), if they need to reset a password, they dont need to know the url of the site, and the username and password of that admin, to get in and reset it etc, there is a centralized management tool.

Of course we could built tools to talk to several databases, and manage items,

With one centralized management tool, we can build phone tablet and even desktop apps (thinking about html 5 with air etc) so we can manage everything on the go.
We’ve looked at some of the domain reseller api’s too, so users can renew or signup their domains in their admin, or our staff can… there are lots of things that we can do to make our business better, more efficient, and at the same time give our customer lots of powerful tools at their fingertips.

Of course, this model would allow us to have customers manage whatever tool or service we offer, not just websites. We could have people sign up at a centralized site like mymadeupdomainnametools.com and sign up a crm service, email marketing tool, facebook helper tool, or other non website related services we could offer too… and of course, by having a centralized model, you can upsell and cross sell your existing clients. We have a decent number of clients, but it would be nice to let them know what we’re doing without being in their face, making relevant suggestions as they go.

Sorry for the long post, but these are some of the ideas we’re working with… obviously its a big broad view of what we do and where we’re headed… but I wanted to give a list of functions and why, because you can do single sites, but for lots of reasons we have gone to this multi-tenant and we like the way it allows us to function.

The funny thing, the reason i came back to look at content box was because i was going to setup a wiki to track my ideas and document as we develop our new version.

I there are several people looking for the same type of thing… we could pool ideas, maybe resources, since we’re new to Coldbox too, it would be great to get some senior ColdBox guidance too.

Anyways, feel free to hit me up here, twitter, or send me a personal email.

Would be happy to compare notes and chit chat.
I’m trying to get more community involved.

Have a great day.

Gavin Pickin
CF Developer

Twitter: @gpickin

I got a couple of emails, anyone else got any comments on this novela?

Seems like there are a couple of people are interested in making this happen.
Anyone else?

Gavin

I have already started the multi tenant support for ContentBox.

It will be in the core and an addon module for a nominal fee.

Luis Majano
CEO
Ortus Solutions, Corp
Toll Free/Fax: 1-888-557-8057
Direct: 909-248-3408
www.ortussolutions.com
Twitter: @lmajano, @ortussolutions

Very cool... Any more info available?

Eta
Features
Price or pricing model (per server or per instance or # of sites etc)

Thanks in advance

Hi Gavin

I will post a feedback soon once we finish the admin ui push. The next push is site admin.

It will not be ridiculous. Maybe $99 per CFML instance.

Luis Majano
CEO
Ortus Solutions, Corp
Toll Free/Fax: 1-888-557-8057
Direct: 909-248-3408

Twitter: @lmajano, @ortussolutions

Any news about this module?

I don’t think so. It remains high on our list of big features, be we haven’t tackled it yet.

Thanks!

~Brad

ColdBox Platform Evangelist
Ortus Solutions, Corp

E-mail: brad@coldbox.org
ColdBox Platform: http://www.coldbox.org
Blog: http://www.codersrevolution.com