Hi guys,
I created a new groups, Processes & Strategies for Live Websites, a few days ago. Unfortunately it got rejected by the moderator to be included in the public list, so I though I should promote it here so you can find it.
The group is about managing and developing live websites. For very simple and/or small sites this is not a big problem, but as the site grows and more people get involved it becomes more difficult for everyone to be on top of everything. Then having standardised processes and strategies becomes more important.
Take for example updating an important module on a busy live site. To do that with a minimum of downtime or screw-ups it must be done in a controlled and organised form.
I can identify some steps needed for doing this right, such as:
1. Make sure that everything done on the dev server is documented.
2. Check what changes has been done on live server and backport them to dev.
3. Make sure that the test server is as close clone as possible of live server.
4. Make a test rollout on the test server and write a rollout plan for live server.
5. Rollout on live server.
6. Make extensive testing to make sure it doesn't break anything.
Of course there are generic information on Internet about this, but nothing that is adapted to specific Drupal needs, especially testing etc.
This is just one small example of all the new tasks and challenges you will be facing the day you make the first version of a site live. Then you can no longer just "code" away on the dev server and think it will rollout with no glitches once a new feature is done.
Since I soon will start facing these "issues" I took a look at the Drupal Handbook, but I couldn't find much info about this.
The existing information seems to end when a site goes live. How to develop modules, themes and sites are all well documented. But how to manage and further develop an existing live site I can't find much about.
To try and create an organised effort to address this I created a new workgroup, Processes & Strategies for Live Websites.
My goal with this group is to provide a discussion platform for these issues and that a lot of this will end up in the Drupal handbook under for example "Managing Live Sites".
Welcome to join the group
