Recently, I talked to a friend about CMS engines and how he felt about them. He gave me some insight as to how he decides what to download, what to install and what to trash. It’s a little interesting to get into the mind of someone that knows just enough to be dangerous on the web side of things.
Typically, an IT professional will do a lot of research before installing anything. We like to know who’s going to be using the application, what the requirements for it will be, what the server requirements are, how it will affect our security, etc. We also take to heart the fact that our decisions could cost the company millions of dollars in extra costs.
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For my current and past few employers, it wasn’t just the Web guy doing research, but a whole team of qualified people that where researching - each with the ability to Veto the software instantly. Being a tester myself, I’ve actually come across software that’s stored passwords in plain text. The Author countered my security report saying “the passwords aren’t stored in the DB, so even if the DB is compromised, the passwords are not.” Doesn’t do much for the web server when it’s compromised, that’ll cause all kinds of problems on the network.
My friend has a different way to do things. He likes to use the “I just install it and test for a a few days and see what happens” approach. While this works, it wastes a lot to time, energy and could compromise your web and DB servers very quickly. The other thing is, if you don’t do research, you may end up installing Mambo then later trying Joomla only to find out that they’re both roughly the same thing due to a fork awhile ago.
The “blindly install and test” mentality gets a lot of people in trouble, but oddly, it’s probably the most popular method with someone just getting started in the web world.
So, how does someone go about picking a CMS for them? Well, it matters really. You have to start asking yourself a lot of questions. This is one of those situations where “Patience is a virtue” kicks in…. So, some questions you should be asking yourself are:
- What type of web and database servers will this run on? Windows/Linux, MySQL/MSSQL
- What type of web language does your server support? Java, PHP, .NET (ASP) C# or VB, Ruby On Rails?
- Who will maintain the application? A team or an individual?
- How professional must it look? Is this situation for a family or for a professional organization?
- How many users are you supporting? 10 people or 1,000 people?
- Will the template of the application change often or once every few years?
Those are the primary questions you should be asking yourself before you even look at the available CMS solutions out there. With the answers to these questions already answered and thought out, you’ll have a much easier time digging through the masses - even if you already know what the answer to those questions are in your head.
After your choice
Evaluation of packages can last from seconds/minutes to months. Oddly, a lot of people I’ve met fall within the hours area of that mentality - if there are install problems, thats lasting seconds.
So, once you pick the software you want, how do you evaluate it? Well, first, more research actually…
- What version of whatever language does it require? If it uses PHP, does it require 4 or 5 - .Net 2 or 3.5? Does it require extra Server Side technology to be used?
- Are there known issues with the database version you plan on using? Do you need to use OLDPASSWORD in MySQL or is there a FullTextSearch requirement that your MSSQL 2005 server isn’t going to have? Do you need an ODBC connector?
- Is security on your web server going to cause problems due to the configuration? This is mainly language related, but those of us that must work in very secure environments know this can be an OS issue as well…
- Is the web address going to cause problems for you? Will Localhost suffice instead of a fully qualified domain name?
- What security problems are there with this package (there are always security issues)? Did you download a version that needs to be patched right away? Have you checked out what type of past vulnerabilities have existed for this software to get an idea of how well the software is coded?
- What are the known installation problems? Do you have to edit some obscure file deep inside the folder structure to avoid hours of toiling with the install because the devs haven’t released the patch just yet? Believe it or not this happens all the time.
But wait, there’s still more! Thats right folks, installation of a CMS package won’t get you from point A to B quickly (ok, some packages install almost seamlessly, but thats not my point).
Now that you have done your research, you’re itching to install your package… But, what do you do once its installed? If you’re installing something simple, things go easy and you can start working with it immediately. What happens when you install something that is really built as a full on Portal as well? A great example is PHPNuke vs Mambo. Installation and configuration of PHPNuke is pretty easy by today’s standards, but installing Mambo without really doing research - you’re going to have a world of confusion about you. Sure you’ll figure out some things immediately, but you’ll have a bad case of “learning while I’m doing”, which can cause a lot of problems later for you.
So, after you pick your package, what do you do? MORE RESEARCH… How does the configuration go, are there extra hoops to jump through, how much time will you need to devote to editing, updating and creating that content on your CMS?
Questions, questions, questions… I think you really get the point - there is a lot of research before you really pick a CMS Engine. So, in the end, by the time you actually pick a CMS and download it, you should know it’s the right one for you. Download and install 1, not 8…
Preview of the Next Blog Post: Just What The Heck Is A “Knowledge Worker” Anyway?:
I’ve been around CMS solutions for awhile now, I’ve even been around ECM solutions like Sharepoint for a bit as well. It seems, when ECM started getting popular, a term term sprouted out of the internet ectoplasm called “Knowledge Worker”. Honestly, I don’t see what all the hub-bub is and it actually annoys me to see the term used.
