April 2009 Meeting: Automated Deployment with the Ægir Hosting System

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dale42's picture
Start: 
2009-04-23 18:30 America/Vancouver
Organizers: 
Event type: 
User group meeting

Automation is the name of the game for efficiently maintaining multiple websites and Drupal has the tools to do it! Join us at 6:30pm on Thursday April 23, 2009 at Raincity Studios for the Vancouver League of Drupalers April meeting where Robin Puga will step through the process of deploying Drupal sites using Ægir as well as review the current state of the project. Robin will also cover some techniques used to deploy complex sites using Install Profiles in Ægir.

This month instead of a case study we're doing lightning talks. Leave a comment if you're interested in giving one.

Date: Thursday April 23, 6:30pm
Location: Raincity Studios, 1 Alexander Street, Suite 400 in Gastown. [Map]
Cost: There is no charge and all are welcome

For those who don't need to leave right away there's typically a more social discussion at a local pub afterwards.

Agenda

Automated Deployment with the Ægir Hosting System

Automation is the name of the game for efficiently maintaining multiple websites and Drupal has the tools to do it! The Ægir hosting system lets you create and manage a site by filling out a form and pressing submit. Is it really this easy? Robin Puga will step through the process of deploying Drupal sites using Ægir as well as review the current state of the project. Robin will also cover some techniques used to deploy complex sites using Install Profiles in Ægir.

This past month, Robin Puga has finished researching and implementing the Ægir hosting system for a project he's been working on through Affinity Bridge (affinitybridge.com). As you may have heard, Ægir (formally known as Hostmaster2, http://groups.drupal.org/aegir-hosting-system) is a set of modules for Drupal which allows you to deploy and maintain other Drupal sites. Yes, that's right Drupal deploying Drupal. Ægir has just had its first major release and big plans for the future. The Ægir hosting system is the work of many developers but particularly Adrian Rossouw now with DevSeed). As Robin likes to put it, "in my recent work I've found the view is pretty amazing standing on the shoulders of giants."

In his presentation, Robin will step through the process of deploying Drupal sites using Ægir as well as review the current state of the project. Robin will also cover some techniques used to deploy complex sites using Install Profiles in Ægir.

Robin Puga is an independent software developer living in Vancouver. For over a decade Robin has been developing web applications using free and open source tools. His company, Digiloom (digiloom.ca), has been providing clients open source website content management systems allowing non-technical users to maintain their own websites since 2002. Robin also co-hosts the radio program Each For All: The Co-operative Connection (http://www.eachforall.org) on Vancouver Co-op Radio.

Lightning Talks

For this night, a lightning talk is a 5 minute presentation on something useful or cool, and need only be marginally related to technology. It might be a cool website feature, a useful utility, or how to enable an option from program. You can use a notebook computer, cellphone, cue cards or wave your hands and dance! Some of the best lightning talks have been non-techincal, like how to do a stretch break or a 5 minute introduction to mind-mapping. Be creative!

We'll go for up to six talks. Leave a comment if you'd like to give a talk.

Drupal Q&A

Bring your questions on anything related to Drupal from how to do something technical in PHP to what modules are needed to implement a feature you want.

Location Details

Raincity Studios

Raincity Studios are located at 1 Alexander Street, Suite 400 in Gastown. [Map]
There's a security intercom at the door, so you'll need to buzz to get in. Take the elevator to the top floor, then take the flight of stairs to the floor above that.

Thank You Raincity

Our thanks to Raincity Studios for making their office available for our meetings.

Drupal Association

We encourage everyone receiving value from Drupal and the Vancouver League of Drupalers to join the Drupal Association: http://association.drupal.org/membership

Not only does this directly support Drupal, it supports the groups.drupal.org website where our group's web presence is based.

Comments

How do you do that AE

rjdempsey's picture

How do you do that AE character thing? After reading this post, typing it out simply as Aegir seems inadequate.

I cut and paste the text

dale42's picture

I cut and paste the text from Robin's email, then held my breath it wouldn't get mangled when displayed in the browser! :-)

It's easy! Option-' or

CatherineOmega's picture

It's easy! Option-' or Shift-Option-' for uppercase on OSX.

(Also, I cheat and bookmark this, the best single-serving site ever: http://www.copypastecharacter.com)

Thanks! Of course I could

rjdempsey's picture

Thanks! Of course I could have googled for a quick answer. But I prefer conversation. :)

Well, yeah. If you'd

CatherineOmega's picture

Well, yeah. If you'd googled, you wouldn't get a recommendation for a character reference site. ;)

Thanks for the character

izmeez's picture

Thanks for the character reference site, its quite handy.

Izzy

robin.puga's picture

Big thanks and props to Affinity Bridge, and Mack Hardy for bringing me in on a project that allowed me time to learn all about Ægir. I'm super stoked to share what I've learned about this with others.

I've been working with Mack for a few years now and felt that I didn't give him enough credit in the Agenda description above. Many thanks Mack for all the development opportunities which I would never have had without you! :-)

~ Robin

Lightning Talks

dale42's picture

In case you didn't read that far in the announcement, I'm looking for 4 to 6 people to step up and do a 5 minute lightning talk. Although it needs to have some relationship to Drupal (sorry knitters) it can be highly "lateral" (think Yoga for Geeks). Any kind of tip, trick or utility that's made your Drupal life easier is pare for the course. And it goes without saying we'd love to hear about useful modules, Views/CCK features, or JQuery goodness.

Personally, I'd love to see to someone do a "healthy snacks for geeks" talk. You know, something guilt-free I can whip up in 2 seconds to replace potato chips and cookies while I'm coding! That, and a demo of implementing XDebug in XAMPP.

Lightning talk: presenting 2 modules

infojunkie's picture

If there's still room for short talks, I'd like to present two of my contributed modules: Views Bulk Operations and Sheetnode. Thanks!

Still Room

dale42's picture

Yes, there's still room.

So far I have tentative commitments for:
- GIT from Roland
- Using Mind Mapping for Site Design from Izzy

Almost had Jim Pick doing a talk on semantic web, but he had to cancel.

If there's enough noobs

rjdempsey's picture

If there's enough noobs present. I can still do a very quick demo of the SimpleViews module. I've shared it with a few Drupal beginners who were daunted by the Views 2 UI.

Yes, I am interested in

izmeez's picture

Yes, I am interested in doing a lightning talk, I was thinking it would be on "Using Mind Mapping for Learning Drupal" but I do use it for site design also and can extend the talk that way if people desire.

Thanks,

Izzy

I say go for it regardless.

dale42's picture

I say go for it regardless. I'm not a noob and I'm interested. (Haven't had a chance to check it out in person, but I'm curious to have a look)

SR&ED

langworthy's picture

Jesse briefly talked about SR&ED. There is an upcoming free public information session on June 11.

As I understand SR&ED, if you pay yourself or others to do R&D, the Canadian government wants to give you free money.

Thanks

Ryan Weal's picture

Just a quick note here to say thanks to the organizers/participants at last week's event. I'm new to the League of Drupalers and I found the information to be relevant and useful. I am looking forward to the next event.

I am also in the market for Drupal-related work. My past experience includes some recent freelance dev work and some client-side work with big companies prior to that. If you're looking for someone to help keep me in mind.

OT: Scotch Meetup Info

dale42's picture

At the Heather after-meeting discussion someone expressed interest in the new Scotch meetup. I can't recall who, so beg your indulgence while I post a link here: http://www.meetup.com/The-Vancouver-Whiskey-and-Scotch-Meetup-Group/

Slàinte!

Vancouver

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