Emory Shared Web Hosting

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Emory Shared Web Hosting

• CONDOR

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Current Environment(Maple)

• Apache Running on Single Machine
• No redundancy
• Single Fault brings down entire environment
• Must bring down service to apply patches
• Unable to scale as load increases
• Coldfusion 6.1
• Standard edition not Enterprise
• Limited to one instance for environment
• Apache 1.3
• WebDav service bound to web server

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Current Environment(Maple)
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New Hosting Solution(Condor)
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New Hosting Solution(Condor)

• Load Balanced
• Scalability
• As load increases, can easily add additional
  servers to handle requests
• Fault tolerant
• Server can go down, and websites will remain up
• Ability to patch servers with service still
  available
• Load is distributed between the servers evenly,
  and if machine is unavailable directs to
  available servers

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New Hosting Solution(Condor) continued

• Coldfusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition
• Latest version of Coldfusion
• Printable Web Content
• Dynamically transform web content to PDF or
  FlashPaper 2 using the new CFDOCUMENT tag
• Structured Business Reports
• Flash Forms and Controls
• Build accessible, high-quality forms in minutes
  using the new Rich Flash forms capabilities
• New CFCHART Engine
• Ready-to-Use Chart Styles

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New Hosting Solution(Condor) continued

• Coldfusion Enterprise Edition (continued)
• Runs on top of J2EE application
• Allows multiple instances on single server
• Highly scalable, can load balance
• Load Balanced
• Multiple instances spread across multiple servers
• Allows for upgrades without downtime
• Shared Environmental Variables with instances
• Fault tolerant
• One instance failing does not cause failure of
  web applications

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New Hosting Solution(Condor) continued

• Apache 2
• Unix threading
• On Unix systems with POSIX threads support,
  Apache can now run in a hybrid multiprocess,
  multithreaded mode
• Module enhancements
• Simplified Configuration
• WebDav
• "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning"
• Runs on separate machine
• Not tied into any web server
• New Administration Panel

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New Hosting Solution(Condor) continued

• Egenera Blade Environment
• Diskless Servers All disks are EMC storage
• Automatic failover to spare server hardware in
  the case of a hardware failure
• Redundant network interfaces
• Easy hardware upgrades
• Remote management of hardware
• High speed interconnect between servers

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New Hosting Solution(Condor) continued

• Software Versions
• Coldfusion MX 7.0 Enterprise Edition
• PHP 4.3.2
• Perl 5.8.0
• GNU bash, version 2.05b.0

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New Hosting Solution(Condor)
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Condor WebDav

• WebDav is still the method implemented for the
  uploading and downloading of files
• The Condor environment features a a fully
  functional WebDav server
• WebDav allows for a more flexible upload
  environment
• Individuals can have access to specific
  directories
• Not required to share one user for an entire site
• Must Have a valid Emory account to upload web
  files. If and outside developer requires access,
  then the person must have a sponsored account.

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Condor Webdav Use

• Connecting to the WebDav server has changed. This
  is to facilitate easier management of the WebDav
  interface
• Ex. A web developer wants to edit the files at
  http//www.emory.edu/test/foo
• To connect to this via WebDav, you would point
  the WebDav client to the following url
• http//dav.www.emory.edu/test/foo or
• http//dav.emory.edu/test/foo

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Condor Webdav Use

• Ex. A web developer wants to edit the files on
  his development site http//dev.emory.edu/test/di
  r
• To connect to this via WebDav, you would point
  the WebDav client to the following url
• http//dav.dev.www.emory.edu/test/dir or
• http//dav.dev.emory.edu/test/dir
• Ex. Professor wants to update site
  http//college.emory.edu/staff/prof
• Would connect using the following
• http//dav.college.emory.edu/staff/prof
• http//dav.www.college.emory.edu/staff/prof

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Condor WebDav Administration

• Old Environment
• Tied into a single webserver
• Not portable to new environment
• Difficult to remember URL to manage files
• URLs changed depending upon name of platform
• Issue with lock files

• New Environment
• Designed to be expandable and scalable
• Easy to remember URL for administration
• URL remains the same independent of hosting
  environment
• Still being upgraded and improved

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Condor Webdav Administration

• Connecting to the new WebDav Administration
  interface just requires adding (davadmin) in
  front of the URL for the website
• For site http//dev.emory.edu use
• http//davadmin.dev.emory.edu or
• http//davadmin.dev.www.emory.edu
• Can edit a subdirectory directly. For
  http//som.emory.edu/doctor/bob use
• http//davadmin.som.emory.edu/doctor/bob
• http//davadmin.www.som.emory.edu/doctor/bob

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Condor Development Environment

• The development environment is a complete
  replication of the production environment.
• Enables full testing of sites and features before
  putting code into production
• Paths to the files and directories for each site
  are the same in development as in production.
  Only the URL changes
• Minimizes changes that are required to take code
  from development to production

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Condor Development Environment

• Connecting to the site
• Site will be reached by adding a (dev) in front
  of the production url
• Ex. http//www.emory.edu - production
• Dev would be
• http//dev.www.emory.edu or
• http//dev.emory.edu
• Ex. http//som.emory.edu production
• Dev would be
• http//dev.som.emory.edu or
• http//dev.www.som.emory.edu

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Condor Migration Procedure

• Make request for Condor environment to be setup
  for the site
• New URLs will be put into place (including dav
  and davadmin)
• http//dev.domain.com
• http//prod.domain.com
• Files can be moved by an administrator or can be
  done by the end user
• Once verified working. Submit ticket to switch
  DNS to point to new environment

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Q A