Announcing the new https://demo.dspace.org running on Docker!

[Tim Donohue]

All,

As of today, our public demo site for DSpace (v7) has moved to https://demo.dspace.org . The REST API backend is now available at https://demo.dspace.org/server/ 

This demo site auto-updates itself every time a new change is pushed out to the DSpace v7 maintenance branches (dspace-7_x branch) in our frontend or backend codebases. So, it will always be running the latest DSpace 7 code.

In addition, for developers, a new https://sandbox.dspace.org site (backend: https://sandbox.dspace.org/server/) is available to preview any pre-8.0 code and features.  (Because 8.0 development has just begun, this sandbox site is currently identical in features to demo.dspace.org.)

Finally, the older DSpace 6 demo site is still temporarily available at a new URL of https://demo6.dspace.org .  More information on that is below.

New Demo Platform uses Docker

The demo.dspace.org site is now on a new Docker-based platform, hosted by the DSpaceDirect team at Lyrasis.  This new platform allows us to use the Docker images generated by the scripts in our codebase to run our demo site.

• The demo frontend uses the new "dspace-7_x-dist" image for "dspace/dspace-angular" (https://hub.docker.com/r/dspace/dspace-angular), built from the script at https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/blob/dspace-7_x/docker/docker-compose-dist.yml 
• The demo backend uses the new "dspace-7_x" image for "dspace/dspace" (https://hub.docker.com/r/dspace/dspace), built from the script at https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/blob/dspace-7_x/docker-compose.yml 

(The sandbox.dspace.org site works in the same way, but uses the images built from the "main" branches in our codebases.)

This demo platform provides verification that these Docker images could be used in Production scenarios. That said, because our core development team does not have experts on running Docker in Production, we still recommend institutions exercise caution & closely analyze these images before using them in your own Production setups.  We also welcome anyone to pass along general Docker improvements/enhancements as contributions back to DSpace!

Updating old DSpace 7 demo URLs locally

All older DSpace 7 demo URLs, namely https://demo7.dspace.org/ (old demo frontend) and https://api7.dspace.org/server/ (old demo backend) will begin redirecting to the new locations immediately.  We will also work to correct/update these older URLs in our codebase and Wiki to ensure they point at the new locations. (Please be patient, as there are many links to update.)

Anyone who is using the older demo URLs locally for testing/development should update your configuration to use either demo.dspace.org (for 'dspace-7_x' branch) or sandbox.dspace.org (for 'main' branch).  These changes have already been made in our GitHub codebase. So, you could also simply pull down the latest code.

Old DSpace 6 Demo Site moved to demo6.dspace.org

As we are aware some institutions are still working on their upgrade from v6 to v7, we have migrated the older DSpace v6 Demo site to https://demo6.dspace.org/. We will do our best to keep this older 6.4 site running until the beginning of 2024. However, please keep in mind, because this site is on an aging platform & v6 is end-of-life, this demo site may not be as stable as it once was.

Acknowledgment / Thank You!

We'd like to thank the DSpaceDirect team at Lyrasis for helping us establish this new demo platform and committing to provide ongoing support for the future.

In addition, we owe a HUGE "Thank You" to the Atmire and 4Science teams for hosting our prior https://demo7.dspace.org (frontend) and https://api7.dspace.org (backend) demo sites, respectively. Both 4Science and Atmire have kindly donated these demo sites since the beginning of DSpace 7 development in 2018. This has been an amazing service and major donation back to our entire DSpace community.

Thank you to the Atmire, 4Science and Lyrasis teams!

--

Tim Donohue (he/him)

Technical Lead, DSpace

tim.d...@lyrasis.org

Lyrasis.org | DSpace.org