Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

Dev-Test-Live for your CMS too

27-Oct-2010

Tags: Digital and Media Asset Management, Document Management (ECM), Web Content and Experience Management, Implementation, Industry Standards, Selecting Technology

There are some things in life that just shouldn't be considered optional, like deploying a web content management system in a three-stage Development-Test-Production environment, or even four, with Staging thrown in.  Most enterprises run their actual websites and web applications in a three- or four-stage environment, but fail to similarly distinguish environments for their employee-facing Web CMS platform.

Some enterprises only have a license for a production instance of their CMS. Why? Because that is how software licenses are sold to them.  Development and Test environment licenses are considered and listed as optional extras -- luxury items on an extended price list.

Let's just be clear on this... Never develop anything in a production environment, ever!  Remember your production environment is just that: it is your live environment, the working, living, breathing system. It is where your colleagues go to manage content and frequently modify website behavior as well. You should never under any circumstances be making changes to functionality directly in this environment. There are just too many variables to be sure that when you fiddle around, something won't go terribly wrong.  Sometimes things go wrong immediately and it's obvious; just as often things go wrong but they can take weeks or even months to emerge as critical issues, corrupting the system. Then tracing back the problem to its roots can be near impossible. 

By the way, this is a similar issue with many other technologies we evaluate, including ECM, Digital Asset Management, and others.

It should be standard that all vendors bundle in Test and Development server licenses with their core Production server licenses. They are not optional items and should never be offered or promoted as optional. As a buyer you should insist that any quotations include full pricing for a Development-Test-Production environment, and as a vendor you should be upfront with buyers that a Production-only environment is not just inadvisable, but downright stupid.

An automobile dealer would never be allowed to offer brakes as an optional extra, why should it be an option for a mission-critical business application?

    Excerpt from the Plone CMS Evaluation

    Web Content Management Report looks at... Usability in Plone

    "Usability is a mixed bag. While Plone's basic contributor interface is relatively simple and easy to use, many complain of a steep learning curve for administering, configuring, and integrating a Plone site. This is only partly a UI issue; it is mainly due to a large stack of new technology under the hood that you occasionally need to dip into in order to accomplish certain tasks. For example..."
    (p. 517)

    CMS Vendor Evaluations

    Learn the real strengths and weaknesses of major CMS vendors from around the world, in our Web Content and Experience Management research stream.