Attending a Drupal 7 Session – Multisite
After having discussed a bit about TRIM with Marc Laporte yesterday evening, I was curious to see how Drupal handled the multi-site management.
Emma Jane Hogbin is going to tell us more 
BTW, she’s working on a book about Drupal Front End theming.
Interesting concerns:
- why to use it and which clients are best suited to use these features.
Goal: make technology more accessible for clients.
“The 100 Mile Client Roster” : 10K a year.
Motto: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”
Reduce: Security updates
Reuse: Downloaded themes
Documentation
Answer questions once “Drupal night”
Invoice less frequently for larger amounts
Assumptions:
* low traffic sites and unique content per domain name. Common functionality. Brochureware.
Editable themes.
Overnight, little work are key objectives.
http://www.drupal.org/node/43816 has the technical details.
Lots of sharing:
shared code base, IP, modules directory
segregated databases
all common modules shall go into /sites/all/modules
Google Analytics and google account created for clients so that they can access stats (when they do realize they want them, maybe months later when they do realize it exists !).
Drupal has a sexy installer, that’s a fact.
Presentations are here: http://www.slideshare.net/emmajane/
irc: emmajane
mail: emma@hicktech.com
A dynamic talk but not too deep on tech. General impression: Drupal can work for lots of small sites.
Q&A touches on backup (Emma Jane uses the backup module). Weekly backups. The backup module can be automated through cron.
People usually forget their password.
Having a feeling of control over their site leads users to commit more money for larger projects.
