THIS IS A TEST INSTANCE. ALL YOUR CHANGES WILL BE LOST!!!!
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However, since cloning of this system across domains is routinely carried out as part of current support processes, any relocation to Apache Infrastructure is viewed as a low technical risk activity.
The work needed to upgrade and migrate the forums divides into 4 task areas, which are each separately addressed in a subsection below: (1) the set-up of the ooo-forums VM platform; (2) the application work on the customised phpBB / MySQL application; (3) the actual migration of the live service from Oracle Inc to the Apache Foundation infrastructure. (4) Work on the rebranding and other content changes to comply with agreed project requirements
Detailed System Configuration Notes
- The configuration is largely build on a phpBB build. This is currently at version 3.0.8. This one behind current, but upgrade to 3.0.9 was deferred in view of the pending relocation to Apache Infrastructure, and will be integrating into included in this migration.
- Due to architectural limitations in phpBB, the 9 10 forums are implemented as 9 10 separate logical systems each with its own directory hierarchy for code and application data and its own schema within MySQL. However, since the 3.0.4 upgrade, all NL-specific mods have been merged into a single common code base, with each forum symlinked back to a version specific directory within /var/lib/phpBB. This is mainly for manageability, but this also has a performance dividend as the APC opcode cache resolves all 9 10 copies of each php module back to its real file-name and thus shares the same cache space.
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- A hot-copy backup of the DB is currently taken nightly to allow the Datacentre backup system to backup a consistent dataset. A typical daily/weekly/monthly copy of these backup sets and Apache logs are also maintained online within the file-system. A weekly offsite delta/compressed copy of the backup is also taken for D/R purposes.
Task Breakdown
The work needed to upgrade and migrate the forums divides into 4 task areas, which are each separately addressed in a subsection below: (1) the set-up of the ooo-forums VM platform; (2) the application work on the customised phpBB / MySQL application; (3) the actual migration of the live service from Oracle to Apache infrastructure. (4) Work on the rebranding and other content changes to comply with agreed project requirements
Set-up of the ooo-forums VM platform
As this work is under the aegis of the @infra project, I have raised a JIRA ticket [INFRA-3888] Initial Configuration of the VM ooo-forums.apache.org to cover this work.
Wiki Markup Build _Test_ VM using Ubuntu VM and pull a copy of _Current Prod_ to validate. This work will be done within the current OOo (Oracle) working practices to de-risk the migration ahead of task 3. \[completed\]Wiki Markup Set up initial build of _Target_ VM under VMware ESXi. This is a bare Ubuntu 10.04 LTS VM configured as a “standard server” and including the Apache-standard security extension. \[completed\]- Set up phpbb role
- Document as per INFRA-3888.
Application work on the customised phpBB / MySQL application
Wiki Markup Obtain project endorsement
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to transfer the application content. \[completed\]Wiki Markup Transfer the _Current Prod_ build, with a snapshot of the form content from _Current Prod_ as at 9th Aug 2011 to form the basis for full scale testing pre-prod. This will content be stale and not synced to _Current Prod_. All forum content changes with be discarded at task 10. \[complete\]Wiki Markup Build and integrate Language Pack extensions \[completed\]- Regress forum customisations
- Agree impacts / change with NL forum admins
- Full dress rehearsal of migration
- Integrate agreed backup options on Target
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- Integrate agreed zero-admin management scripts
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Migration of the live service from Oracle to Apache infrastructure
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- Obtain go-validation from project including DNS cut-over.
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- 24 hrs before DNS cut-over) Bring Current Prod offline for ~3 hrs whilst the current prod D/B and file system updates post 28th Jul 2011 are backed up, transferred to Apache and loaded onto Target
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- . Oracle
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- will enable DNS redirection for
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- the new external public IP address (140.211.11.67). Bring service back on-line: Target is now the Live Production environment, albeit though DNS redirection from the still Oracle-managed openoffice.org domain. The service on ex-Current Prod is now offline.
- DNS cut-over. This takes up to 24hrs to cascade globally. User access to Live Production continues whether direct or redirected via the Oracle IP addr. The now ex-Current Prod can be decommissioned by Oracle as necessary.
Rebranding and other content changes to comply with agreed project requirements
- Agree branding changes to be applied to forums and implement on Target as a test off-production.
- Develop and maintain list of post-cutover improvements and fixed
Technical Issues
- ACM Cache. ACM caching is required, given the usage volumes on the forum. Because of Solaris/Coolstack issues, we previously could not use any of the standard memory variant ACM modules, so TerryE developed a mysqli-based ACM module. With moving to a standard LAMP stack, this is no longer required. acm_acp will be adopted, retiring * acm_mysqli.
- Version 3.0.9 upgrade. This new version of phpBB was released last month. The forums are currently running at the previous version 3.0.8. Upgrade to version 3.0.9 is not now viewed as a high priority issue, and will only be scheduled once the wiki performance issues have been effectively addressed.