Setting up an Intranet

Hi
A bit of advice/thoughts needed here please..  and I'm
very Noob to  
Plone

I'll be in receipt of three new fairly beefy servers very
soon for  
the purposes of upgrading the intranet in my rapidly
expanding  
department.
Three servers, one for each of 3 different areas of study;
web, print  
and broadcast audio.

I've been playing around with Plone for a week or so, using
a testing  
server (with varying success) trying out different packages.
So I'd  
like to use Plone to get away from the constant problems
I've had  
over the years with Windows shares as an intranet system, ie
user  
rights, paths to servers etc which students never seem to
grasp!

I'd like it (my shiny new intranet) to be a place where
students can  
keep their files safely, access from anywhere and have some
other  
resources there too, such as equipment/computer booking,
module info,  
tech guides etc. We also run web courses where traditionally
we've  
been teaching Dreamweaver, but now it's practically extinct
in the  
online news industry - so Plone would be good to introduce
CMS for  
websites to the students.

A few probs tho:

It seems like every time I get a collection of products on
the test  
server together that I think would be useful, I start
getting error  
pages ( e.g. portal_navigation attribute error)..

Any thoughts on how I could set all this up?
With 3 servers how could they all be integrated, if at all?
I've also started testing Enfold Desktop which seems great,
IIS proxy  
would be useful but can't figure it out.
One last thing, I'm used to seeing gigs and gigs of files
in folders  
on my servers and it's a bit freaky to think of them in one
big  
database file, reassurance would be nice..

Thanks
Hadrian Cawthorne

IT Officer
University Of Sheffield
Department of Journalism Studies
Sheffield

http://www.shef.ac.u
k/journalism





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> -----Original Message-----
> From: setup-bounceslists.plone.org 
> [mailto:setup-bounceslists.plone.org] On Behalf
Of Hadrian Cawthorne
> Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 8:58 AM
> To: setuplists.plone.org
> Subject: [Setup] Setting up an Intranet
> 
> Hi
> A bit of advice/thoughts needed here please..  and I'm
very 
> Noob to Plone

Welcome!

Plone is designed for community / intranet / extranet use,
so you're in the
right place. 

> 
> I'll be in receipt of three new fairly beefy servers
very 
> soon for the purposes of upgrading the intranet in my
rapidly 
> expanding department.
> Three servers, one for each of 3 different areas of
study; 
> web, print and broadcast audio.
> 
> I've been playing around with Plone for a week or so,
using a 
> testing server (with varying success) trying out
different 
> packages. So I'd like to use Plone to get away from
the 
> constant problems I've had over the years with Windows
shares 
> as an intranet system, ie user rights, paths to servers
etc 
> which students never seem to grasp!
> 
> I'd like it (my shiny new intranet) to be a place
where 
> students can keep their files safely, access from
anywhere 
> and have some other resources there too, such as 
> equipment/computer booking, module info, tech guides
etc. We 
> also run web courses where traditionally we've been
teaching 
> Dreamweaver, but now it's practically extinct in the
online 
> news industry - so Plone would be good to introduce CMS
for 
> websites to the students.
> 
> A few probs tho:
> 
> It seems like every time I get a collection of products
on 
> the test server together that I think would be useful,
I 
> start getting error pages ( e.g. portal_navigation
attribute error)..

Yes, 3rd party products don't always "play
well" together... Testing is a
must here. Also keep in mind that 3rd party and custom
Products don't always
get updated in synch with the core of Plone...

> 
> Any thoughts on how I could set all this up?
> With 3 servers how could they all be integrated, if at
all?

You don't really want three separate Plone servers in most
cases. You can,
however, use the horsepower of three servers in creative
ways. You could put
the Zope database on one machine (using ZEO) and use the
other two servers
as front-ends. Zope (with Plone on top) would run on the two
front-end
servers, with Apache or IIS proxying.

> I've also started testing Enfold Desktop which seems
great, 
> IIS proxy would be useful but can't figure it out.

It sounds like you're running Windows Server, so you might
think about using
Enfold Server. I'm using it for my intranet and it works
great. It
integrates with Active Directory and it uses IIS as its
proxy. It also uses
the built-in Windows method of converting strange things
like Word docs into
searchable text so they can be indexed. The only thing I had
to fiddle with
was redirecting all requests from port 80 to port 443.

> One last thing, I'm used to seeing gigs and gigs of
files in 
> folders on my servers and it's a bit freaky to think
of them 
> in one big database file, reassurance would be nice..

You don't _have_ to put all of your data in the database.
That's just the
default. There are several methods of storing data on the
file system (or an
SQL database). Search for ExternalFile, External Storage,
etc.

Also, there is a whole community of users who have some
special products to
handle multimedia content. Look for Tramline and related
products.

There is also a large community of users in the academic
community. Look for
EduPlone, connexions, etc. They have special Products for
classes,
professors, etc.

Maybe I've brought you more questions than anwers, but
Zope/Plone is a big
world, so there's lots to learn. Have fun!

Larry Pitcher

> 
> Thanks
> Hadrian Cawthorne
> 
> IT Officer
> University Of Sheffield
> Department of Journalism Studies
> Sheffield
> 
> http://www.shef.ac.u
k/journalism
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Setup mailing list
> Setuplists.plone.org
> http://
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> 



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