Decoupling Drupal - Drupal Camp Toronto 2014
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What if you could say to a front-end developer: “Build it the best way you know how and with the best tools available. Don’t worry that we’re using Drupal” You can see the presentation video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1rc5CEro6U or go to the last slide.
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Decoupling Drupal - Drupal Camp Toronto 2014
- 2. Alex De Winne • 15 years in the industry • Drupal since 4.7 • Founder of Therefore • Hacker, visionary, tech enthusiast & musician
- 3. “Build it the best way you know how and with the best tools available. Don’t worry that we’re using Drupal” What if you could say to a front-end developer:
- 4. Use Drupal more like it’s a Content Management System and less like it’s a Web Publishing Tool
- 5. WPT vs CMS The goal of a Web Publishing Tool is to capture content with the primary purpose of publishing web pages. The goal of any CMS should be to allow storage of structured content and dissemination of content to any platform, in any presentation, at any time.
- 6. Decoupling Drupal It means making no assumptions as to where your content will end up. What’s required is complete separation between the Backend Content Model and the Front-End. It’s about seeing Drupal as a component of a Distributed CMS rather than a Monolith Web Publishing Tool.
- 8. The Monolithic Stack In the 90’s, virtually all applications were written using well defined stacks of services and deployed on a single monolithic, proprietary server. 1995 Thick, client-server app on thick client Well-defined stack: • O/S • Runtime • Middleware Monolithic Physical Infrastructure Does this look familiar?
- 10. Karen says we need… Reusable content Structured content Meaningful meta data A presentation independent CMS
- 11. COPE • NRP has been operating a decoupled CMS for over 10 years. • NPR credits its API with increasing page views by 80%, largely because they’re able to get their content onto a variety of mobile devices without custom programming. Create Once, Publish Everywhere
- 12. NPR’s COPE Architecture CMS Data Entry Static Data API Cache Renders
- 14. Client Host Twitter Sprints 1 - 2 Discovery Static Design & Rebuild AODA Single A Launch
- 15. MySQL Blog Authoring Client Host DocPad Static Site Disqus Twitter Sprints 3 - 4 Drupal + Services Node + Hapi Router Blog CMS Coverage Heroku
- 16. Heroku MySQL DocPad Static Site Full CMS Authoring Client Host Disqus Twitter Sprint 5 80% CMS Coverage
- 17. Heroku MySQL DocPad Static Site Client Host Disqus Twitter Sprint 6 - 7 AODA AA French & Spanish Translate Full CMS Authoring
- 20. What We Learned & What You Can Expect to Change When Working in a Decoupled CMS Architecture
- 21. You’ll start to think differently about your CMS • You’ll start to see your CMS as a tool content writers and content architects like to hang out. • Front-end developers will see it an API to a content repository. No longer a system that dictates which technologies they can or can’t use.
- 22. Workflow Optimization • Prototypes can turn into the real thing with no extra work. Just add API™ • Decreased dependancies allow teams to operate more efficiently. • Reduces the risk that a change made within one element will create unanticipated changes within other elements.
- 23. Upgradeability / Interchangeability • Swap out front-ends, keep the back- end as is • Add front-end publishing end points, keep the back-end as is • Back-end upgrades, keep the front- end as is.
- 24. Increased Reliability and Security • A full stack CMS falls apart if any component stops working properly. It’s pretty hard to break a static website. • Drupal can be safely hidden behind a corporate firewall. Only the API is required to be exposed, and optionally restricted to only interfacing with the static server.
- 25. Increased Scope Flexibility In many cases it’s not a requirement to have 100% CMS coverage. If we’re working towards a fixed cost project with a flexible scope, one of the elements that could get de-prioritized is CMS coverage. It can always be added later.
- 26. Speed and Scalability • Caching of the static files in memory • Serving files from a CDN or a load balanced configuration • Utilizing a distributed file system to avoid slow disk performance bottlenecks It doesn’t get much faster than a static site. But, when you need even more speed here are some options:
- 27. Multi-Channel Publishing Multi-Channel publishing becomes a reality. Additional projects can be seen as extensions to the existing infrastructure rather than a static implementation.
- 28. Human Resources Doors are opened to a greater talent pool. Front-end designers and developers don’t need to be Drupal developers.
- 29. Can’t All Be Rainbows and Unicorns
- 30. Challenges Authentication and roles are potentially more complicated to setup. Reusable logic patterns become non-reusable when moved to the front-end. Challenges arise with X-domain requests.
- 31. Where Can It Go From Here?
- 32. DevOps Service Components Redis PaaS S3CDN Content Delivery Network module Pantheon, Aberdeen, Acquia Amazon Cloud File System Caching DB Server
- 33. External Cloud Services Redis Disqus Prediction Twilio Hapi Router PaaS S3CDN Translate Google Voice API Comments
- 34. API Based Front-End Publishing Redis Disqus Prediction Twillio Hapi Router DocPad Static Site iPhone App Print Workflow PaaS S3CDN Translate HTTP Router HTML Site Native App PDF Document
- 35. Standardized Content Model Redis PHPCR Storage API Mongo DB Midgard2 Hapi Router DocPad Static Site iPhone App Print Workflow Medium PaaS S3CDN Disqus Prediction Twillio Translate Standardized Storage API JCR Compatible Data Store CouchDB
- 36. Decoupled Authoring Tools Redis PHPCR Storage API Mongo DB Midgard2 Hapi Router DocPad Static Site iPhone App Print Workflow Authoring Tools Gather Content Medium PaaS S3CDN Custom iPad App Disqus Prediction Twillio Translate
- 37. Redis PHPCR Storage API Mongo DB Midgard2 Hapi Router DocPad Static Site iPhone App Print Workflow Authoring Tools Gather Content Medium PaaS S3CDN Distributed CMS based on Best-of-Breed Components Custom iPad App Disqus Prediction Twillio Translate
- 38. Is this all a bunch of blue sky dreaming? Maybe, but check out what prismic is up to…
- 39. It features a Writing Room for content writers to author, manage and store content, and a Content Query API for developers to integrate managed content into any website or app. REST, JSON or HTML, effective API browser, easy to use Comfortable content creation experience. Addressing content writers’ real-life problems. Content is API-based. Inject it easily into new platforms and sites.
- 40. Questions
- 41. Thank you
- 42. Links • http://docpad.org/ • spumko.github.io/ • http://phpcr.github.io/ • http://prismic.io • http://www.exoplatform.com/ (CMS that uses JCR) • http://nedonosko.blogspot.ca/2009/09/jcr-based-content- management.html • http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/cors/