May 26 Tricode presented their technical road trip to create a SAAS solution based on Magnolia. Didn't visit the Global Magnolia Conference in Basel? Here are the slides.

1. Tricode BV
De Schutterij 12 -18
3905 PL Veenendaal
The Netherlands
tel: 0318 - 559210
fax: 0318 - 650909
www.tricode.nl
info@tricode.nl
SaaS + CMS: Tricode’s technical roadtrip
Ronald Kerstens and Gerton ten Ham

2. Agenda
1. Tricode introduction
2. Road to a Tricode SaaS
3. Tricode SAAS project
4. Lessons learned..during the roadtrip
1. Needs versus solutions
5. Questions & Answers

3. Tricode
• Founded in 1999
• Based in
• Veenendaal, Netherlands (NL)
• Skopje, Macedonia (MK)
• 2014: 55 employees
• 35 in NL
• 20 in MK
• 20+ customers in NL, BE, UK

4. “We support organizations in creating and maintaining
an online presence by use of several content
management, customer experience and e-commerce
technologies.
We boost online conversion rates by delivery of know-
how, projects and services to our customers”.
4
Tricode

5. Tricode

6. Tricode

7. Road to Magnolia CMS
2011
• Tricode becomes AEM
CXM implementation
partner
2012
• Search for Java CMS
supplement to AEM:
Magnolia CMS
2013
• First Magnolia CMS project :
BplusC library website

8. Road to Tricode SAAS
2014- Q1
• BplusC Magnolia 5 solution released
• Brainstorming Tricode SAAS product vision
2014- Q2
• Start of Tricode SAAS development project
• Alpha release 1.0 of SAAS
2014-Q3
• Continuation of Tricode SAAS development project
• Release 1.0 of Tricode SAAS
2014-Q4
• Release 1.1 of Tricode SAAS

9. Road to Tricode SAAS
Features of a Tricode cloud WCM service:
1. Hosted CMS solution
2. Managed hosting & CMS support services
3. Automated CMS & website provisioning
4. Customer WCM self service
5. Additional/optional WCM & eCommerce features
6. Product based release management
7. Multiple product editions
Tricode Cloud WCM
Powered by Magnolia CMS and Konakart

10. Tricode SAAS project
• SAAS alpha development project
– In scope:
• Customer WCM self service
• Product based release management
• Additional/optional WCM & eCommerce features
• Multiple product editions
– Out of scope:
• Automated Website/CMS provisioning
• Hosted CMS solution (done by hosting partner)
• Managed hosting & CMS support services
2014- Q2
• Start of SAAS
development project
• Alpha release 1.0 of SAAS
2014-Q3
• Continuation of SAAS
development project
• Release 1.0 of SAAS
Tricode Cloud WCM
Powered by Magnolia CMS and Konakart

11. Tricode SAAS project
Business needs Implementation
Customer self service
Simplified Magnolia CMS configuration
• Mobile first and easy styling/branding tooling
• Standardized user authorization model
• WAAS Admin app
• Preconfigured middleware and data storage software
Product release management
Simplified release deployment
• Continuous Integration & delivery pipeline
• Single .WAR file = simplified deployments
• Standardized hosting environments
Additional/optional WCM & eCommerce features
More end user product features
• Simple blog & news content centric apps
• eCommerce storefront components and admin app
Multiple product editions
Targeting web marketing and ecommerce customers
• Basic Cloud WCM edition
• High Availability Cloud WCM & eCommerce edition

12. Project Goal
Not a CMS development
platform, but an end user
CMS & commerce
product solution

13. technical perspective

14. Summary of requirements
• Product release management
• Multiple product editions
• Customer self service / pre-configuration
• Additional features

15. Product release management
Build and Deploy

16. Simplified release deployment
Implementation need:
• Simple Magnolia CMS deployment with
a product war file

17. A classic read

18. Building Magnolia
At first…
• Manually specifying which module
version must be used for the Magnolia
bundle of choice
Evolved in…
• Importing one dependency for the
Magnolia bundle of choice
<dependency>
<groupId>info.magnolia.bundle</groupId>
<artifactId>magnolia-bundle-parent</artifactId>
<version>5.2.5</version>
<type>pom</type>
<scope>import</scope>
</dependency>

19. A classic read cont'd

20. magnolia.properties
-Dmagnolia.repository.data=/usr/var

21. Simplified release deployment
Implementation needs:
• Pipeline to build a tested single war file
• Create a new release of the artifact, archive
old versions
• Automated deployment of the artifact

22. Jenkins: Build cycle

23. Jenkins: Release

24. Automate deployment
• Start a wiki page and write down all steps that are needed to
perform the deployment.

25. Automate deployment
• Do several deployments by the instructions.
– If something is missing – add it. If something is wrong –
fix it.
• After a while write scripts and start using them
instead.
• Use Jenkins to start the scripts for you.

26. Customer self service
Middleware (pre-)configuration

27. Simplified release deployment
Implementation needs:
• Easy to deploy and upgrade middleware software
and data storage system
• High Availability and high performance hosting
environment
• Secure connections and secure data storage

28. Deployment models
Basic
High
Availability

29. Deployment diagram

30. Secure connections
• Author environment:
– https://<client>-adm.tricode-cms.nl
• Public site:
– https://<client>.tricode-cms.nl
– http(s)://www.example.com

31. SSL redirect in Apache
How do we know when to redirect a
public page to https?

32. Using Apache rewrite rules
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/login [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/register [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/my-account
RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

33. In Magnolia…
when
changed to…

34. Apache has to change…
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/login [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/register [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/my-account
RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

35. Magnolia SSL enabling

36. Customer self service
Magnolia (pre-)configuration

37. Simplified Magnolia CMS configuration
Implementation needs:
• Superuser account not accessible to SAAS
subscribers!
• Customer self service requires simple user
authorization model: customer only wants
to add users in user groups.

38. Magnolia pre-configuration
• Using custom installation tasks
1. Change superuser account
@Override
protected List<Task> getExtraInstallTasks(InstallContext installContext){
final List<Task> tasks = new ArrayList<Task>();
tasks.addAll(super.getExtraInstallTasks(installContext));
tasks.add(new ChangePasswordTask("/system/superuser", SYSTEM_SUPERUSER_PWD));
return tasks;
}
• Security app bootstrap files
– Standard users, groups and roles

39. User authorisation

40. Additional features
Templates and Themes

41. Implementation needs:
• Mobile first
• Easy styling/branding of website by customer
• Use of market leading web frontend development
framework for layouts
Simplified Magnolia CMS configuration

42. Foundation Templating Kit
• Why Foundation CSS framework?
– Full responsive -> Mobile first
– Standardized markup: Easy override of standard layout
– Backed by a company and large user community
– Time for an alternative next to STK?

43. Responsive custom theme

44. Change a theme

45. Turning this
into

46. Additional features
Modules and Apps

47. More end user product features
Implementation needs:
• Magnolia CMS easy and secure application
configuration
• Integration of standard Magnolia CMS modules in
Foundation Templating Kit
• Website Blog integration
• Website e-Commerce integration

48. Easy and secure configuration
VS.

49. Standard Form module
• Standard module extended with Foundation based templates

50. Forms validation
• Foundation Abide: HTML5 form validation

51. Standard Imaging module
• Generators: small, medium and large
• Foundation interchange plugin loading responsive images

52. Blog module
• Website integrated blog

53. e-Commerce module
• Based on Konakart Community Edition
• Uses Konakart SOAP interface (loosely coupled)
• Freemarker based components:
– Login/register/my-account
– Product catalog
– Basket
– Basic checkout
• SOAP integrated Konakart Admin App for Magnolia 5.3

54. Konakart Admin App

55. Konakart page components

56. Magnolia AdminCentral

57. Conclusion
Delivering Tricode Cloud WCM =
Not only hosting and provisioning implementation
but includes
Development of an enhanced end user CMS
product solution

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