Hours: 8:30am - 5pm M-F
Phone: 217-244-6300
Address:
424 Library, MC-522
1408 West Gregory Dr.
Urbana, IL 61801
URGENT server problems can be reported at other times to the Grainger Library at 333-3576, who can relay information to appropriate IT personnel
Jul 6, 2007
We're changing a lot of the systems that interoperate to provide the Library's web sites. This edition of IT Infrastructure News is a summary of those interrelated projects. Every one of these projects is complex and we can't describe every detail in a news message. So as always, let us know your questions or areas of deeper interest and we'll get back to you.
We operate a number of web servers but the majority of the content we think of as "the Library's
Web Site" is served from a machine called Cooper. Everyone who edits content on the site
knows this, and sees the published results of their changes on its web service alter ego
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/. There's a similar
server to Cooper named Coach located in the Funk ACES Library building that continually copies
content from Cooper and exists solely as an emergency spare.
Unfortunately, those two machines are showing their age (we bought them in Feb 2002) and have
become increasingly unreliable. They're also running old versions of the Linux operating
system and other software components. Obviously the Library's web site is a critical system, and
we're not happy when it fails or can't keep up with the times.
Because of this, we've recently had to make a decision to reprioritize their migration. We
have a pre-production version of Cooper running new versions of the Linux OS, PHP 5, Apache 2.2,
mod_perl 2.0 etc. The new server is completely virtual hardware in our VMware cluster, using
SAN storage (as described in
the inaugural 5/1/2007 issue of this
newsletter). As a result of this virtualization, we will be completely retiring the Coach
server.
The new server is currently being tested to discover and fix whatever compatibility issues
result from the significant software upgrades. We expect this new server to be ready to start
serving the content for
www.library.uiuc.edu in the next couple weeks. This migration will not
affect web page addresses (URLs), nor the method you use to edit pages. Cooper also serves
the encrypted web site content for
https://www-s2.library.uiuc.edu/. Because of
the complexities of testing and moving that site, most of which is accessed via NetID logins
through "Bluestem", we plan to migrate that content to the new server more gradually.
Last fall we
recommended the creation of a
CMS implementation group. Despite that, such a team was never created. In its
absence, the Systems Office and now the IT Infrastructure & Software Development unit has
continued to work on the customization and stabilization of the OpenCms system to prepare it for
our site. This is a complex project for a complex situation, but we've made significant
progress.
Since the base system has been in active development while we work, we have been running
versions 6.2.3 and 7.0 release candidates 1 & 2. OpenCms Version 7.0 final was released
this week, which is what we intend to use for the production system.
We still have a lot of work to do on the system, but we plan to have it ready for a limited
number of editors to start using the production system before the fall semester begins.
Further development and customization will continue as the system gets used for real live pages.
We'll get more details about the CMS system and project out soon.
Another server change and project related to all of the above is the implementation of a "reverse proxy web server" that will operate in front of the other web and CMS servers. It will have no content of its own, but silently intercepts and processes all web requests coming to our sites. It essentially operates like this:
University LibraryFor comments on this page contact: IT ISD
Last modified by: John Weible on 11/7/07