Staging Drupal: Change Management Strategies for Drupal

Staging Drupal
Change Management Strategies for Drupal
Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies DrupalCamp NH 2011

http://twitter.com/ebeyrent
http://drupal.org/user/23897
DrupalCamp NH 2011 Introductions
Permissions API
Permissions Superuser
Crowd SSO
LDAP Extended Groups
Context Local Tasks
Search Lucene Biblio
Search Lucene Attachments
Search Lucene OG
Visual Search API
My Modules Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies Erich Beyrent

Agenda
Playing well with others
Managing code changes
Managing database changes
Managing content changes
Deployment strategies
DrupalCamp NH 2011 Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies

The only thing that's constant is... DrupalCamp CT 2010

Staging? What is that?

Staging? What is that?
“ Staging” is the process of delivering changes from one environment to another.

I develop on the live server.
I work alone.
Backups?

The Manual Process
Point.
Click.
Wait.
Rinse and repeat.

Why it fails
It's tedious.
It's time-consuming.
It's error-prone.
It's risky.

The staging process should be:
Reliable
Repeatable
Scalable
Efficient
DrupalCamp NH 2011 Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies Staging Goals

Anatomy of a Drupal Site DrupalCamp NH 2011 Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies Files Configuration Content Code

A traditional approach
Use source control

Use source control
Essential to the development and staging process
Manages changes to the code over time
With SVN, use a standard repository layout consisting of “tags, branches, trunk”
Use multiple repositories to separate core code from project code

What goes into source control
Code, configuration, theme-based files

Use source control templates for files like settings.php

What about database snapshots?

Databases are great at storing and retrieving data, not merging and versioning

Databases are great at storing and retrieving data, not merging and versioning
What about files?

Use source control
Manage changes in code

Manage database changes
Export your views, panels, rules, and content types to code
Use Exportables and Ctools to export other data
Manage configurations with Strongarm
Use Permissions API for roles and permissions
Use Features

Why should we do this?
Multiple environments need to be updated
Allows for a phased approach to change management
Saves time and money
Is fully testable and reproducible
Minimizes downtime and helps manage expectations

Enable modules
function demo_update_7001() {
$ret = array();
$modules = array(
'ctools',
'context',
'devel',
);
module_enable($modules, TRUE);
return $ret;
}

Grant permissions
$ret = array();
$role = user_role_load_by_name('admin');
$permissions = user_permission_get_modules();
user_role_grant_permissions($role->rid, array_keys($permissions));
return $ret;
}

Create content types
$types = array(
array(
'type' => 'article',
'name' => st('Article'),
'base' => 'node_content',
'description' => st('Description.'),
'custom' => 1,
'modified' => 1,
'locked' => 0,
)
);
Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies DrupalCamp NH 2011 foreach ($types as $type) { $type = node_type_set_defaults($type); node_type_save($type); node_add_body_field($type); } node_types_rebuild(); }

Create taxonomy
$ret = array();
$vocabulary = new stdClass();
$vocabulary->name = st('Categories');
$vocabulary->machine_name = 'categories';
$vocabulary->description = st('Standard node categories');
$vocabulary->hierarchy = 1;
$vocabulary->module = 'demo';
$vocabulary->weight = 0;
taxonomy_vocabulary_save($vocabulary);
return $ret;
}

Create taxonomy terms
$ret = array();
$term = new stdClass();
$term->name = st('Drupal');
$term->description = st('Category for all things Drupal');
$term->parent = array(0);
$term->vid = $vocabulary->vid;
taxonomy_term_save($term);
return $ret;
}

Use source control
Manage database changes in code
Use deployment tools

Use deployment tools
Source control as a deployment tool
SVN update, post-commit hooks
GIT push
drush, rsync, make
Hudson, Phing
http://drupal.org/project/phingdrushtask
Capistrano
https://github.com/gaspaio/Drupal-Capistrano-Deploy

Drupal Modules
Deploy
Context
Features
Ctools
UUID
Services
Boxes
Compare various staging modules:
http://drupal.org/node/980186

The process
Import current database snapshot into your sandbox
Scrub your database!
Update your codebase
Develop, commit, update
Promote changes to QA environment, test
Tag or branch and release
Drink beer

Test the process
Install the Demo module
Take snapshot
Run update.php
Verify results, watchdog, error_log
Rewind

What about content?? Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies DrupalCamp NH 2011

What about content?? Staging Drupal – Change Management Strategies DrupalCamp NH 2011
Staging content in Drupal sucks
Several options, but none are 100% reliable
All depend on the UUID module
Deploy, Node Export, Migrate, Services
Error-prone, authentication issues, transport errors

Drupal 8
Proper configuration management
A robust entity API and UUIDs in core
Join the discussion at http://groups.drupal.org/build-systems-change-management/cmi

Questions?

Thank You! http://twitter.com/ebeyrent http://drupal.org/user/23897

Staging Drupal: Change Management Strategies for Drupal

by Erich Beyrent on Oct 25, 2011

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Staging Drupal: Change Management Strategies for Drupal — Presentation Transcript