XTF running on old hardware/software

[dms.at....@gmail.com]

Our XTF implementation to access our finding aids was completed in 2010 and our staff familiar with the system have long since turned over. We find ourselves now running on a very old server and possibly in need of additional customization to our system.  Suggestions for how to improve the stability of our system would be appreciated - especially regarding assessing the impact of migrating to a more up to date server and other hardware/software on our implementation.  We would also be interested in hearing from anyone who has successfully contracted with a consultant to stabilize and augment our implementation. Thank you.

[dan haig]

What's it hosted on now?

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 11:06 AM, <dms.at....@gmail.com> wrote:

Our XTF implementation to access our finding aids was completed in 2010 and our staff familiar with the system have long since turned over. We find ourselves now running on a very old server and possibly in need of additional customization to our system.  Suggestions for how to improve the stability of our system would be appreciated - especially regarding assessing the impact of migrating to a more up to date server and other hardware/software on our implementation.  We would also be interested in hearing from anyone who has successfully contracted with a consultant to stabilize and augment our implementation. Thank you.

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[dms.at....@gmail.com]

I am told it is a server running Windows 2003.

[dan haig]

Wow. You do need help.

What version of XTF are you running?

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[dms.at....@gmail.com]

We are running 3.0

On Tuesday, December 12, 2017 at 11:38:20 AM UTC-5, dan haig wrote:

Wow. You do need help.

What version of XTF are you running?

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 5:25 PM, <dms.at....@gmail.com> wrote:

I am told it is a server running Windows 2003.

On Monday, December 11, 2017 at 12:33:03 PM UTC-5, dms.at....@gmail.com wrote:

Our XTF implementation to access our finding aids was completed in 2010 and our staff familiar with the system have long since turned over. We find ourselves now running on a very old server and possibly in need of additional customization to our system.  Suggestions for how to improve the stability of our system would be appreciated - especially regarding assessing the impact of migrating to a more up to date server and other hardware/software on our implementation.  We would also be interested in hearing from anyone who has successfully contracted with a consultant to stabilize and augment our implementation. Thank you.

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[Steven D Majewski]

Are you planning to migrate to a newer version of Windows or to a Linux server ? 

[dms.at....@gmail.com]

I do not really know which one - all of this is mandated outside the Library by ITS.  Should I try to make a case for one over the other?  Regardless, I am concerned about whether/how our customization may not be compatible with something newer. Thank you for your interest!

[Bridger Dyson-Smith]

Hi dms --

unless you've made radical changes to the servlet container running XTF, I would guess that you could do something along the lines of the following:

1. copy your xtf-instance.war and your xtf-instance directory to a new servlet container

2. start that servlet container

3. visit your server.address.org/8080/xtf-instance and verify...

I'm making a couple of assumptions here, namely that you have access to the Windows server that is running your XTF instance and that all of your finding aid data is inside XTF. If you don't have 100s of gigabytes of finding aids, you could test the above locally; e.g.

1. download and install Apache Tomcat

2. copy your xtf-instance.war and xtf-instance directory to the $tomcat/webapps directory

3. start that local version of $tomcat

4. index your files locally

5. visit localhost:8080/xtf-instance/search and verify that your instance is working as expected....

I'm not sure if this is canonically the correct/best way to do this, but that's how I've handled development and (re)deployment in the past, across several versions of Java (6, 7, 8) and versions of Tomcat (the application that we use to host/run XTF). If you have any questions about the above, fire away -- it's a relatively easy process, and you can test/check things from your local machine with relative ease.

Hope that's helpful.

Best,

Bridger

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[dms.at....@gmail.com]

Thank you, Bridger,

It's way beyond my pay grade as an archivist, but I can see if our ITS department will be willing to work with it.  Our XTF system was developed locally by library resources we no longer have, so they haven't been doing any support or upgrades and I'm not sure they want to assume responsibility for it.  But we'll see.

I am also interested in any consultant resources or experiences the list is familiar with, since we are in need of enhancements.

Thanks, all.

[Bridger Dyson-Smith]

To be clear: deployment is literally copying set of directories and a .WAR, so hopefully they (your ITS) will be able to see that. There's a Java and servlet container dependency (e.g. Tomcat), too, but in any case good luck with that. :)

As far as consulting, Winona Salesky[1] does great XML stack related consulting and freelance work. There may be others, too.

Hope that helps and again, good luck.

Best,

Bridger

[1] http://wsalesky.com

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[Hillel Arnold]

+1 for Winona Salesky - she did great work for us at the Rockefeller Archive Center, and was also really good at knowledge transfer, so that we were able to eventually take on development and maintenance locally. 

Hillel

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Hillel Arnold

Assistant Director, Head of Digital Programs

Rockefeller Archive Center

914.366.6382

[dms.at....@gmail.com]

Thanks very much everyone.