G‐Cloud – Content Management System Service Definition | Drupal
Cloud Drupal
Service Description
06.03.13
Prepared by:
David Clarke
Peter O’Sullivan
Bang Communications Ltd
The Black Barn
Cliddesden
Hampshire
RG25 2JL
telephone
01256 370900
email
david@bang‐on.net
peter@bang‐on.net
Introduction
For further information please visit www.bang‐on.net/g‐cloud/
Bang’s Content Management solution is a cloud based, feature rich, content management soloution that
offers an open‐source publishing, content management and blogging platform, with a deep plugin and
theme architecture that allows for limitless possibilities.
Drupal is an ideal solution for those wanting to create a new dynamic online presence or for those
wanting to migrate and finesse an existing site onto a more a cost effective and flexible platform.
An Open Source Content Management Service will provide the appropriate combination of functionality,
usability and future flexibility for any website. This view is based on the following considerations:
Overall fitness for purpose
Drupal is a powerful open source platform that allows you to easily organise, manage and publish
your content, with an endless variety of customisation. At its heart is an open development model
that means Bang, and a passionate Drupal community, are constantly working to make sure it is a
cutting‐edge platform that supports the latest technologies. Drupal’s core also encourages
modularity, standards, collaboration, ease‐of‐use, and more.
Content Management
User roles in Drupal allow controls over what a user can do. Users with the “Contributor” role are
allowed to add and edit content but not to publish; a user with the Editor role can then approve the
edited content for publishing to the live site. This feature should cope with the various access and
workflow requirements.
Performance
When configured appropriately, Drupal is capable of a high traffic site. We'd recommend the use of
a PHP accelerator on any server. Drupal uses standard HTTP caching mechanisms to minimise
requests, and there are plugins to enable more aggressive forms of caching. Other plugins offload
large media files to a content delivery network, reducing the load on the main server. Drupal is
stateless by default, making it possible to transparently scale up by load balancing across multiple
servers. There are similar options for using a cluster of database servers, though we don't currently
anticipate this being necessary and it adds complexity to the server configuration outside of Drupal.
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Presentation
The theming system allows Drupal to produce any desired design of HTML and CSS, and plugins
expand its capacity to handle specific forms of content. It has a media library for images, video and
audio.
Pages can be placed at any URL, but by default have search‐engine‐friendly URLs. If pages on the
new site don't correspond to the same URLs as on the old, the redirection plugin can be used to
ensure visitors are directed to corresponding pages.
Extensibility
Drupal is easily extensible, as evident by the lively community of both commercial and free plugins.
Plugin quality is monitored on the Drupal plugin repository with a database plugins' compatibility.
Bang's engineers have experience developing plugins and themes for Drupal.
Other open source CMS are also extensible, but these have a smaller community and fewer
modules. There are also (anecdotal, but widespread) issues with plugin quality. This means a lower
chance of finding an existing plugin to suit your needs, and so a greater chance of needing to
develop it in‐house.
Whilst Drupal is a capable and well‐featured environment in which to develop a site, requirements
often extend beyond what is available off‐the‐shelf. In these cases, Bang use our deeper
understanding of the Drupal platform to develop extensions or plugins to enhance the featureset
available.
In the spirit of the open‐source community, and where appropriate, Bang share our plugins and
extensions with the community. Whilst this is partly a matter of pride in the work we have
produced, it also opens up the possibility of other users in the Drupal community using our
enhancements, providing additional testing and potentially contributing bugfixes or new features
back to us.
Impact of implementation on existing IT systems
We recommend the use of web standard formats for any information sharing between systems.
Drupal can pull content from external systems using standard formats: RSS, Atom or XML‐RPC.
Other formats are supported by plugins, and non‐standard formats could be interfaced with by
developing a plugin, though we would on principle recommend the use of standards instead.
Ease of use by departmental and agency web managers
Drupal has been developed with rich content management functionality and flexible user roles at its
core. This focus ensures that the system remains straightforward and usable, providing the
minimum obstruction to users doing typical tasks. This is a critical advantage with any distributed
publishing model meaning minimal training requirements for remote users.
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Other open source CMS’s typically have either less functionality or a broader focus, to enable
delivery of a wider variety of content. As such they often disappoint the user or presume a more
advanced user, one who has been educated in web technologies. It has a steeper learning curve for
all levels of user, and so more time would need to be spent on training.
Technical Description
The following is an overview of the functionality available on a Drupal platform.
General
• Enables security driven de‐centralised Content Management. It enables a multitude of users to
fully manage their own content and avoid the perennial problem caused by web master
bottlenecks.
• Provides a single source for management of the online web presence.
• Enables the re use of content (i.e. one piece of content may exist on unlimited web pages).
• It also provides a component style of management of a page rather than an entire page
representing a piece of content.
• Provides the ability to display the ‘last updated’ date and where appropriate include a ‘review
date’ on each page.
• Provides the ability to manage multiple domain names/ websites without additional impact on
licensing
• Automatically display content from other pages on a dynamic content page (e.g. news
homepage).
• Allows editors to switch to an ‘HTML’ view in the WYSIWYG content pane.
User Administration
• Provides the ability to manage users and administrators.
• Enables user group profiling, incorporating role based security.
Versioning
• Provides roll back / roll forward functionality whilst retaining the integrity of version history
• Has the ability to preview all previous versions of any content page.
Accessibility/e‐Government Compliance
• Conforms to accessibility and disability compliance.
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• Supports a browser interface that is capable of running on a number of differing browsers –
Internet Explorer versions 6‐8, all recent versions of Firefox, Crome and Safari.
• Supports dynamic template selection dependant on visitor’s output device (e.g. PDA, iPhone).
Workflow/Publishing
• Permits workflow definition for authorisation of content to be published. Content cannot be
published without authorisation/review by at least one other user.
• Provides the ability to publish content to multiple delivery channels.
• Permits the declaration of publish and expiry dates, and automatically presents and removes
content accordingly.
• Allows attachments to be added (e.g. MS Word/Adobe PDF documents).
• Provides the ability to publish content in a non‐editable format (e.g. GIF, JPG, TIF, PDF, etc).
• Enable the incorporation of Stylesheets
• Provides an Administrator interface which clearly identifies content pages that are awaiting
approval/publishing.
• Can contain a notification system that will inform Administrators when content pages require
approval, and Authors of when their content pages have been either approved or rejected.
• Supports multimedia content (e.g. Sound, Video, Flash Objects, e‐books) embedded in page
templates and within content areas. Indicate compatible multimedia formats.
• Permits the declaration of start and end dates for content, with publishing/expiry handled
automatically on specified dates.
Navigation
• Enables a breadcrumb trail facility to assist with navigational styling.
• Supports horizontal and vertical navigation (e.g. flyout lists, collapsible lists).
• Places no constraints on the number of drilldown levels for navigation.
• Supports Ajax/JavaScript navigation lists and alternate accessible lists when Scripting is turned
off in the browser.
• Supports tag clouds, automated service directories dynamically created by content
categorization/tagging.
• Provides the ability to display the A to Z list from every page as individual letters along a
navigation bar.
Ease of Use
• Ensures that Administrators do not require proprietary Software skills (e.g. HTML, Javascript).
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• Provides the facility to preview content in a WYSIWYG style (i.e. Content will appear in the exact
format that will appear on the Browser).
• Controls layout via a number of component blocks, which build up a page.
Security/Audit
• Provide audit mechanisms and procedures; full audit trail exist for both Administration of Users
and Content.
• Provide visitor statistics (e.g. by pages viewed, browser, by search engine etc).
• Adopts an appropriate security regime to authenticate users for secure access.
• Can use a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) for enhanced security.
Searching
• Provide content indexing and contextual search facilities. Content needs to be stored in an Index
type system and need to be retrieved through intelligent (e.g. Contextual) search
mechanisms, examples may include related links/terms, etc.
• Provides the ability to attach metadata to content components.
• Is search engine friendly (e.g. URL’s can be accessed by robots, pages can be book‐marked).
• Provides an Administrator interface to allow customization of indexing and the search results
displayed.
• Is capable of fully indexing documents within the website.
• Can support ‘Enterprise’ search functionality (e.g. Google mini)
• Works with the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV).
Link Maintenance
• Provides an onscreen link checking mechanism to help prevent the occurrence of dead links,
both for internal links and external links.
• Provides ability to generate links to related pages and documents.
• Handle ‘page not found’ requests correctly as 404 errors.
Images
• The system resize an image either automatically or manually through in‐built editor
functionality.
• Images are clearly displayed as low or high resolution.
• The image gallery has the ability to store various file sizes and formats for example GIFs, TIFs,
and JPGs
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Product Roadmap
The community of developers around our CMS soloutiions are extremely active. New versons of the core
CMS are being regularly developed, tested and delpoyed. The development of new features and
functions is driven by a pationate and professional user base which ensures a constant flow of new
items.
Boarding Process
Requirements for a new client will be discussed and depending on whether it’s a new site with no existing content
or a site that requires moving to the platform, the system can quickly be made available. Branding, templating are
swiftly created and deployed for initial content creation and further functionality configured.
Where there is a need to migrate content from an exitsing site then we will work with the client to facilitate this
process.
Off Boarding Process
The patform will allow the expoirt of all data in an xml format or full database if required. This will enable the
migration of all content to the separate system if required.
Customer Satisfaction & Quality
What do people value most in a relationship? They value honesty, trust, consistency, understanding and
mutual respect. For business relationships other aspects are equally important such as competence,
expertise, knowledge, experience and professionalism. These are the behaviours and principles that
Bang embrace on a daily basis and will be use to ensure a strong, enjoyable and mutually‐beneficial
working relationship.
Bang will achieve this by building trust over the long term through providing a high level of service at
every touchpoint. Not simply a case of being available on email, phone or instant messenger but
through creating deeper and wider connections with your organisation feeling to you like a part of your
team and getting under the skin of the challenges you face.
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Bang always ensure that the appropriate personnel will be allocated for a project’s lifetime. All members
of the team will be aware at the outset of any given timescales and will be kept up‐to‐date by the
project manager to ensure that all resources required throughout a project’s lifetime are in place.
Each customer has a primary and secondary contact point within Bang and several tools to manage the
relationship.
Issue Tracker.
Bang provides an online secure issue tracking system. This can be used to report and track bugs, service
issues, enhancements, or general ad‐hoc service requests. Each issue moves through stages, from Open
to Resolved and Closed, and clients can track their issues’ progress at any time.
Basecamp
For more major projects relating to G‐Comm (for example a major enhancement) Bang uses an on‐line
tool called Basecamp. This is a project management tool that allows clients and Bang’s project team to
track performance against milestones, share plans and documentation and communicate effectively
with each other.
Quality
The following Quality Policy process outlines the ethos behind our quality policies and procedures.
The Quality Policy of Bang Communications Ltd is to provide and maintain a Quality Management
System to match the needs of its business for the benefit of both the organisation and its customers by:
• Enabling the company to provide products and service which give a consistently high level of
Customer Satisfaction by delivering in an efficient and effective manner
• The directors and employees are committed to complying with the requirements of ISO
9001:2008 and the Quality Management System. They will ensure that the effectiveness of the
QMS is continually improved
• Top management within the organisation have developed a framework to identify and establish
the organisation’s Quality Objectives and to facilitate their periodic review
• The means by which this policy and the Quality Management System are communicated to and
understood by all personnel within the organisation is established and will be monitored by the
directors
• This policy will be subject to periodic review to ensure its continued suitability
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Bang’s ISO Quality Management System incorporates both internal and external operational procedures
which observe the requirements of the above Acts to ensure the company complies with all necessary
statutory obligations.
We adopt a total quality management approach. Bang’s commitment to this, achieved us the ISO 9001
certification, one of the few in the design industry to do so at that time. This involved over a year of
setting up and running systems that cover all aspects of brand, marketing and design consultancy, from
research and audit, through to print fulfilment. The emphasis has been on ensuring strong lines of
communication between consultancy and client, solid briefing and project management, foolproof
approval systems and post project appraisal, all without condemning another rainforest to paperwork.
Bang achieved certification on the first assessment with no non‐compliance, the first in our assessors’
career, regardless of industry. In all subsequent examinations Bang has retained certification.
In October 2003 we achieved the most up‐to‐date ISO quality standard, BSI ISO 9001:2000. This involved
moving our management systems online.
Then in February 2010 we achieved ISO 9001:2008 certification, again with no non‐complicances.
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Product Development and Support
Specific software developments would be performed at the location of our development team in
Hampshire.
Our support team is also based at our location in Hampshire. We find this simplifies communication and
makes it easier to provide a rapid response to issues. We mainly provide support to Systems
Administrators (or their deputies) as our clients typically choose to provide a degree of support to their
end‐users directly. This both saves costs and allows the System Administrator to identify common
issues. As such we typically offer direct access to the 2nd level support team who can often resolve the
issue whilst the client is still on the phone. We find this provides a better level of service than having a
1st level call handling layer who often provide little value to a skilled and trained user.
Our 2nd level team sit alongside our 3rd level team to minimise the time between issue reporting, issue
cause identification and issue resolution.
Issues are tracked on our issue manager, which our client has full access to. We also allow our client to
assign the severity/priority of an issue. It is only our client who knows the impact of an issue on their
business rather than taking a purely‘technical’ system level view of impact.
Issues will never be escalated out of the UK.
Remote access
To support our systems we do rely on secure remote access to the datacentres where they run but this
all takes place within the UK. The service is hosted, managed, developed and supported all within the
UK.
Hosting
The hosting service has been setup to provide maximum flexibility at minimum cost. The service will
scale automatically to meet increased demand for pages with minutes. The service is also protected by a
new generation Content Distribution Network which maximises speed of response to page requests,
minimises hosting costs, provides additional resilience by continuing to serve pages even when the
hosting service is unavailable and protects against DoS and DDoS attacks.
Security arrangements
The sites are very secure and their physical security and operational procedures were thoroughly
audited by our external security consultant who has expertise in datacentre operations.
To summarise they include multi‐level physical security, thorough personnel authentication, staff
vetting, and in‐depth and auditable processes and procedures. Of all the sites identified, Dedipower
scored highly for both physical security, staff attitude towards security and in evidence of their
operational procedures being lived and breathed by all staff.
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The above website gives more details about the security arrangements at each site.
In terms of access to the datacentre, only nominated, identity proven Bang staff can visit the datacentre.
Our servers are in lockable racks. Remote access is only possible via a combination of secure VPN and
RSA key encryption.
Data Security
Bang has been hosting websites over the last 12 years and over this time security has become an
increasingly important issue. Bang takes security very seriously and has invested time, resource and
money into implementing ever more stringent security processes and procedures especially in recent
years.
As we host several of the most high profile sites in the UK, as well as sites which hold sensitive data on
behalf of government clients we are routinely audited on security. This can take several forms:
• Our sites are regularly penetration tested by specialist security consultants to ensure security is
maintained
• Our processes and procedures are assessed to ensure they meet best practice
• Our premises have been recently assessed for the level of security
• All Bang staff have been briefed by specialist security consultants and are baseline security
cleared
• Bang IT staff have extensive expertise on developing highly secure platforms and applications
We have recently been through a thorough audit for Defra and successfully achieved completion of a
“Risk Management Accreditation Document Set” ‐ this was for data at the same level of sensitivity as for
this consultation. As part of this audit:
• Bang’s premises were visited
• Personnel were security cleared
• Our datacentres were visited
• Our management and technical operational processes were assessed
• End‐to‐end security was assessed
The system achieved accreditation in October 2010 and is reviewed annually.
Bang have a member of staff with a responsibility as our Security Officer and we are working towards an
ISO27001 accreditation to build on our current ISO 9001.
Compliance to relevant acts
The solution is compliant with the following acts:
• Data Protection Act 1998
• Freedom of Information Act 2001
• Protection of Electronic Communications Regulations 2005
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Restricted marking of content
Users of the system are asked to accept and comply with specific security policies before logging into
the system. These policies are explicit to the organisation using the system and ensure that users are
aware of security requirements.
The system currently also has checks in place to ensure that people recognise the security implications
around the information being uploaded to the system. Data contained on the stakeholder management
system will be able carry restricted security marking.
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Training and documentation
The system is designed to be very simple to use and tailored to users' roles. As such, training is not a
complicated exercise because the users have been involved in the development from the beginning.
Training typically takes place on the client premises, although we are very happy to set up alternative
training environments or to undertake training at our offices.
Training typically takes 2 ‐ 4 hours and involves between 2 ‐ 12 people at each at a session. Training
needs are discussed and agreed with the project team in advance and we produce all training material
including printed, online manuals and test exercises. The training is designed to encourage as much
participation as possible and a balance struck between showing people the system and more
importantly allowing them to use it for themselves.
For remote users we would run these training sessions on‐line using Webex or similar
A training environment is set up the matches the production environment but allows for mistakes to be
made and for people to feel comfortable that they can try things without fear of doing something
wrong. The test system is often made available for people beyond the core training period to allow
people to ‘play’ with the system at other times that suit them.
The scope of the training typically covers :‐
• an introduction to the system
• exploration of specific functions of the CMS
• how those functions work in context to the task the users will typically undertake
• a series of exercises to check understanding
• and ongoing Q & A encouraged throughout the session.
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