Online Editor's Report, Allerton 2008

Updates on the web project.

New Website Development

Project Overview

In April 2008, the Society launched a $60K project with SixFeetUp for a new website based upon the Plone CMS.  The initial scope of the envisioned project is broken into three phases:

  • Discovery and Requirements (4/1/2008-5/21/2008)
  • Design and Development (5/21/2008-9/23/2008, expected)
  • Content Migration and Rollout (9/23/2008-, expected)
    • Volunteer effort to be planned around Allerton 2008
    • Minimal costs, mainly organizational changes within the Society

Through this process, the Society will have to decide to fully deploy the resulting system (see issues related to web hosting below), or continue with another round of design and development to refine existing features and/or add more functionality.

   

Design and Development Update

Since ISIT 2007, SixFeetUp has been implementing the behind-the-scenes functionality requested for the site.  Much of the development has proceeded as planned, and most of the functionality has been implemented.  Testing, finishing touches, and documentation are the main remaining tasks.

Content Migration Plan

SixFeetUp has provided a pre-production website into which IT Society volunteers can begin to migrate existing content and create new content http://maint.itsoc.sixfeetup.com/ Although all Society members will eventually be able to contribute content, Officers, Committee and Chapter chairs, and conference organizers in particular are encouraged to get involved.  Four volunteers will lead the migration effort:

  • Matthieu Bloch
  • Jean-Francois Chamberland
  • J. Nicholas Laneman
  • Anand Sarwate

In addition to migrating Society information and student resources, these volunteers and the Online Committee will develop a plan for migrating and eventually hosting conference and workshop content.  The organizers of ISIT 2007 have requested that the archival content from the conference website be moved to the main IT Society website.

Web Hosting

Plans for managed hosting of the IT Society websites are being formulated. SixFeetUp offers web hosting capable of supporting both the Plone website as well as Pareja application for as long as it continues to be utilized.  The Society would not have to stay with SixFeetUp hosting indefinitely, but doing so makes the most sense through the design and development stage (during which SixFeetUp does not charge for hosting) and the migration and rollout period (during which there is likely to be substantial interaction with SixFeetUp to fix bugs covered by the 6-month warrantee period and pursue planning for future rounds of development).

Current features and estimates for the hosting are as follows.

"Spruce Goose" plan ($119/month + $80 one-time setup fee)

  • 10 GB disk space
  • 500 Mb active RAM
  • 40 GB bandwidth

"Space Shuttle" plan ($199/month + $80 one-time setup fee)

  • 20 GB disk space
  • 1 GB active RAM
  • 80 GB bandwidth

For comparison, the current host of the itsoc website provides 2 GB of disk space for $80/month. The committee feels that the "Spruce Goose" plan would be sufficient initially. If necessary, the Society would be able to upgrade easily at a later time.