Lars Fløe Nielsen

2010 Technology Predictions for WCMS and Sitecore

noreply@blogspirit.com (Lars Fløe Nielsen) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:13:00 +0100

Yes, - yes... I know that January is almost over already, yet even so I want to chip in with technology predictions for 2010.

Cloud computing platforms will mature

Almost anybody who has done technology predictions on 2010 predicts that Cloud Computing Platforms will boost in 2010. This too, I believe will become omnipresent in the mindsets of software vendors and end users. However, unlike many predictions, I do not believe we'll see a huge shift in WCMS vendor strategies, - or at least not the true technology shift that is really required to shift to Cloud Platform alternatives.

Cloud providers such as Amazon and Microsoft supplies two kind of data storage setups: A Simplified data model, which allows true scalability in regards to locations and data size. They also offer a traditional relational database model which has other limitations (data must be centralized in one physical location, and there are limitations to the data storage size).

So, using the traditional relational model, - which almost any existing software provider uses to their data layer will lead to the loss of some of the major benefits of Cloud computing: True size scalability and true cloud distributed data computing (e.g. you cannot have a data segment in US and one in EU). In the other hand, using the simplified data model would require re-coding to your existing application(s) and the loss of functionality on the data level.

In other words, - any WCMS vendor, - or for that fact ANY vendor who want to use real cloud offerings must recode their applications or accept a limitation to the data storage size and computing model. Sitecore does have a very solid abstraction that would allow us to switch data model, but to move to such as simplified model would have wide complications for the caching models and performance.

Of course cloud platform vendors such as Amazon and Microsoft are fully aware of these facts; - and both vendors have recently released support their SQL alternatives. A great first step, - but these models are crippled models of SQL with no real data distribution. Also, a provider such as Windows Azure currently has a 10GB data size limitation which makes it less attractive for a vendor such as Sitecore. After all, cloud computing is also about scaling your solution in content-size. I think we will see better, more native support for relational database storage in the year to come.

So, back to the predictions: WCMS vendors will claim support for the cloud virtualization offerings but very few would implement full data support. Instead cloud computing platform vendors will mature and go into a leadership battle with Amazon now leading the race. The cloud vendors who succeed will be those who successfully converges storage and network virtualization.

In the beginning of this year Sitecore will release a version specifically designed for ultra-high requirements, fully prepared for the real cloud offering (once it is ready). As most of you know, Sitecore can already now scale delivery servers with no limitations. The scalability version applies same capabilities to content production.

Sitecore is currently testing our database model against SQL Azure, and if the test proves successful, Sitecore will support Microsoft Azure SQL within a short timeframe.

Mobile devices

This prediction is really a no-brainer: Looking at current growth, - by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will be using mobile devices capable of executing rich mobile applications. This, combined with advanced mobile OS's and development tools (e.g. Android) will lead to sophisticated applications and needs: Sitecore predicts a growth in mobile social networking as well as location-aware applications. Of course, this will lead to a growth in the use of mobile devices as browsers.

While many new devices are well equipped with a real browser and capable of parsing almost any html page, it is still important to generate output for the device: To give the visitor a compelling experience, the output should be designed specifically for the screen estate. Also, - size matters: Most mobile units suffer with lower bandwidth, which mean you must supply less content, an alternative navigation and scaled images.

Sitecore is well prepared to counter and deliver content to mobile devices as our presentation layer evolves around the "device" terminology. By detecting device and deliver optimized design, combined with Sitecores dynamic image scaling, our customers face higher conversions for their mobile audience.

Watch a 35 seconds video on YouTube on Sitecore and mobile applications.

Analytics integration to CMS vs. CMS with analytics

2010 will be the year we will see a shift in focus for some WCMS vendors. Many will realize that, WCM is much more than maintaining content. It is also about measuring the effect of your content in order to maximize returns, and to an extend profit.

Traditional web analytics does not, even though tightly integrated to the WCM, provide nearly enough functionality for this to happen. While more sophisticated analytics systems, if tightly integrated, may provide you with the intelligence to optimize your web site, - they are all passive systems with no integrated connection to your web content, and design processes. And, - of course, being 3^rd party systems, they are not designed specifically for the system you are using, but built to serve any system, this being a custom web application or a WCMS. This means a lowest common denominator approach and loss of (some) data as well since no API was designed for your specific choice of WCMS.

Sitecore believes, - to fully optimize your business, you need a WCMS that, from within the interface gives you the capability to provide simulation, prediction, optimization and a personalized experience for your visitors based on their current and past behavior. All 100% integrated to the content you are producing. After all, content is great, but given the wrong context it is meaningless.

So, who is up to the challenge in 2010? I believe the larger WCMS vendors, bar one, address this issue (in fact, many us have already done it). The question is who will choose the path of integration with the challenges of data islands and less integration to their respective systems? And who will, like Sitecore, choose the expensive solution to build the core functionality within the WCMS, with the risk of being compared with dedicated web analytics systems beautiful interfaces and not the functionality?

Whatever path the vendors choose, - my hope for 2010 is that our customers, - and the analysts who help them out, will look deeply into the functionality and compare these systems. Not from a feature by feature comparison of the separate instances, but from what is actually achievable once these systems have been integrated. This will require more and deeper insight to integration. Who is up to the task?

Brief video

noreply@blogspirit.com (Lars Fløe Nielsen) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:12:00 +0100

This video illustrates Sitecores support for mobile devices. Also, review the following section on Sitecore's official web site: http://www.sitecore.net/en/Products/Sitecore-CMS/Sitecore-Mobile-Device-CMS.aspx

See the original video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXe5IFk48c0

Another blog update

noreply@blogspirit.com (Lars Fløe Nielsen) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:23:55 +0100

Uhm, it seems that my life is a constant monitoring of the blogosphere. Here goes a few new blogs

Morten Ljungberg - Sitecore Whats new - http://mortenljungberg.blogspot.com/
Chris Bushnell - Tips from a Sitecore Technical Writer - http://cbushnell.wordpress.com/
Paul Markun - Theory in practice - http://paulmarkun.blogspot.com/

Blog post update v2

noreply@blogspirit.com (Lars Fløe Nielsen) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:49:00 +0200

Based on your comments I have decided to clean up even more than I already did.

This list shows when the previous listed blogs was last active. Older blogs have been removed from my list, and from the updated syndicated RSS feed on http://pipes.yahoo.com/sitecore.

If you have ANY additions or modifications to this list, feel free to send me a mail or to comment on this blog.

UPDATE:

Added:

Steve Green - C# Flavoured ASP.Net Web Development using Sitecore CMS
URL: http://blog.capaxsolutions.co.uk
RSS: http://blog.capaxsolutions.co.uk/feed/

Last	Active	Blog name	URL
25-Aug-2008	0	Derek Roberti - taxonomy and hierarchy...	http://contenttree.blogspot.com/
11-Mar-2008	0	Derek Roberti - Web Content Management...	http://cmsmarketing.blogspot.com/
23-May-2007	0	Jacob Christensen - Sitecore Core Development	http://sitecoredev.blogspot.com/
16-Dec-2008	0	Kim Hornung - Sitecore Development	http://sitecorekh.blogspot.com
16-Jan-2006	0	Ole Thrane - Sitecore API	http://sitecore.spaces.live.com/
28-Sep-2008	0	Sergey Marchenko - smar's thoughts...	http://dev-smar.blogspot.com
6-Jun-2009	1	Alenka Caserman - Sitecore Experience	http://sitecoreexperience.spaces.live.com/
10-Aug-2009	1	Alex de Groot - .Sitecore	http://sitecore.alexiasoft.nl
2-Jun-2009	1	Alexey Rusakov on Sitecore development	http://www.alexeyrusakov.com/sitecoreblog
3-Sep-2009	1	Alexy Shyba - Sitecore Support	http://sitecoresupport.blogspot.com/
22-May-2009	1	Dmitry Vasilinenko - DV's notes	http://vasilinenko.blogspot.com/
17-Sep-2009	1	Greg Baxter's Blog	http://gregbaxteranz.spaces.live.com/
19-Mar-2009	1	Ivan Sharamok - Sitecore Gadgets	http://sitecoregadgets.blogspot.com/
26-Aug-2009	1	Jimmie Overby - Sitecore Shared Source	http://sharesitecore.wordpress.com/
11-Sep-2009	1	John West - Blogs about Sitecore	http://sitecorejohn.spaces.live.com/
15-Jun-2009	1	Kerry Bellerose - Sitecore behind the scenes	http://kerrybellerose.blogspot.com/
10-Sep-2009	1	Lars Fløe Nielsen, Lars's ramblings about Sitecore, SaaS and .NET	http://larsnielsen.blogspirit.com/
1-Sep-2009	1	Martin Vikkelsø - Sitecore on the road	http://sitecore-on-the-road.blogspot.com/
4-Sep-2009	1	Michael Casey - Content Management, Business Champions and Developers	http://mikecaseycms.blogspot.com/
2-Jun-2009	1	Philipp Heltewig - Sitecore Around The World	http://philheltewig.spaces.live.com/
8-Sep-2009	1	Sitecore Northeast	http://sitecorenortheast.wordpress.com/
9-Sep-2009	1	Sitecore West’s Blog	http://sitecorewest.wordpress.com/
14-Sep-2009	1	Sitecoreaustralia's Blog	http://sitecoreaustralia.wordpress.com/

Last	Active	Blog name	URL
28-Mar-2008	0	Anders Dreyer on Sitecore Development	http://sitecore.blogspirit.com
17-Sep-2007	0	Company Addition - The Sitecore Experience	http://thesitecoreexperience.blogspot.com
1-Oct-2008	0	James Fraser - Arrested development	http://jefraser.wordpress.com/category/sitecore/
26-Feb-2008	0	Jens Mikkelsen - Sitecore tweaks and Tricks	http://sitecorejm.blogspot.com/
-	0	Krystle Magadia - Krystle/Sitecore - chic beginner	http://km-sitecore.tumblr.com/
6-Oct-2009	0	Richard’s Blog - (Sitecore category)	http://richdias.wordpress.com/category/sitecore
3-Sep-2007	0	Sitecore Smoothie	http://sitecoresmoothie.blogspot.com
10-Aug-2009	1	Aboo Bolaky - {.NET, C#, Sitecore ...} Free your mind...	http://www.bolaky.net/
4-Sep-2009	1	Alistair Deneys - Coffee=>Coder=>Code	http://adeneys.wordpress.com/
11-Sep-2009	1	Brian Pedersen's .NET blog	http://briancaos.wordpress.com/
7-Sep-2009	1	Chris Wojciech - The way is the goal	http://blog.wojciech.org/?cat=5
11-Sep-2009	1	LearnSitecore	http://learnsitecore.cmsuniverse.net/
11-Mar-2009	1	Marco Tana - roundedcube on sitecore	http://rc-sitecore.blogspot.com/
3-Sep-2009	1	Mark Cassidy - Into the core	http://www.cassidy.dk/blog/sitecore
19-Aug-2009	1	Mark van Aalst - blogging mostly about Sitecore development	http://www.markvanaalst.com/
26-Jul-2009	1	Paul George - Web development with asp.net & Sitecore	http://blog.paulgeorge.co.uk/
22-Jul-2009	1	Pentia core team - Molten Core	http://mcore.wordpress.com/

Updated blog list

noreply@blogspirit.com (Lars Fløe Nielsen) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:48:00 +0200

Hello everybody,

I have recently updated the list of Sitecore bloggers both on my own Blog list(s) as well as on Yahoo Pipes. If you have any additions, please let me know.

New entries are highlighted with bold.

Sitecore Blogs

External Blogs

Sitecore official

In addition, - if you don't want to get all of these blogs into your feed reader, - subscribe to this feed which syndicates all of the above

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=ZsFOz4a62xG9Py3Idbq02Q&_render=rss

Anybody, anything missing? Feel free to comment

Sorting your items on your website

noreply@blogspirit.com (Lars Fløe Nielsen) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:52:00 +0200

Alex de Groot wrote an excellent article the other day where he explains about one of the often forgot, but powerful features in Sitecore: Sorting Sitecore Items: http://sitecore.alexiasoft.nl/2009/08/04/sorting-sitecore-items/

His article even illustrated how to write a comparer and use it in Sitecore.

Essentially, Alex’s article explains how to assign a sorter:

You select a node in the content structure, and then select a sorting mechanism which will applied to existing child items as well as to new child items (provided that you haven’t been sorting manually, then this takes precedence).

Whether you publish, - or run live mode on your web site, any time you request a child list of a node, the order you see in your content structure will also be the order you get the list in. So, if your content in the content structure is sorted by item name, your item.Children will return this order as well.

But what happens if you want to create a web control which sorts the content in another order, for example by creation date?

Why not reuse the comparers you have in Sitecore for this purpose?

      Sitecore.Data.Items.Item contextItem = this.GetItem();
      ChildList children = new ChildList(contextItem);
      children.Sort(new Sitecore.Data.Comparers.CreatedComparer());

Pretty neat, right?

But why not take it one step further and create a web control where whoever inserts the web control may choose the comparer at that time: Instead of coding into your web control which sort mechanism to use, why not a take this value from a web control property?

And while at it, - why not built a rendering properties template that allows the editor to select the sort mechanism from a dropdown list:

Create custom property

To build the UI with the “sort” dropdown, first build a template inheriting from “Standard Rendering Parameters” (/system/layout/rendering parameters/standard rendering parameters.

Add a single field, “Comparer” (must match the property in your web control), with the data type “Droplink”. Also set the data source to the comparers node: /sitecore/system/settings/subitems sorting.

Create web control

Next, build or extend your web control to accept a Comparer property. This property will accept a string with the GUID referring to the item where the comparer is defined. The code for this control looks like this:

namespace UsingComparers {

public class SimpleMenu: Sitecore.Web.UI.WebControl {

     private Sitecore.Data.Comparers.Comparer _comparer =
      new Sitecore.Data.Comparers.DefaultComparer();
    private string _comparerIDString =
      "{781247D2-9785-400F-8935-C818EC757967}"; // Default comparer

     public string Comparer {
      get {
        return _comparerIDString;
      }
      set {
        _comparerIDString = value;
        Sitecore.Data.ID comparerID =
          Sitecore.Data.ID.Parse(_comparerIDString);

Sitecore.Data.Items.Item ComparerItem =
Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(comparerID);

string comparerClassField = ComparerItem["Type"];

         _comparer =
          Sitecore.Reflection.ReflectionUtil.CreateObject(
            comparerClassField, new object[0])

            as Sitecore.Data.Comparers.Comparer;
      }
    }

protected override void DoRender(HtmlTextWriter output) {
Sitecore.Data.Items.Item contextItem = this.GetItem();

ChildList children = new ChildList(contextItem);

children.Sort(_comparer);

       foreach(Sitecore.Data.Items.Item child in children){
        output.Write(child.Name + "<br />");
      }
    }
}
}

Register web control

Register your web control as a new web control rendering (/sitecore/layout/renderings), and select the “Parameters Template” field to the template defined above:

Status on the upgrade tool

noreply@blogspirit.com (Lars Fløe Nielsen) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:20:00 +0200

As some of you know, the Sitecore 6 database conversion tool has been in beta now for quite a while. The last intensive test report came up with very few issues, - mostly related to cosmetic issues.

I also know that several upgrade projects have been running simultaneously to the Beta, - and I wish to extend a thank you for the constructive and positive feedback.

Some issues have revealed themselves when our partners have been using the system. For example, while Sitecore has always been a product focusing on security, version 6 locks down even harder: Editors in the past with weak passwords would automatically not any longer have access to the system, and the admin must reset their passwords. This is great for security and ultimately for our customers, but what happens if the Administrator is the only user, and has a weak password too?

In this case, we are currently changing the password to the user name: Of course, whoever updates the system will get a post conversion notification to change the password(s).

Most of this stuff is really something we could release the product with now, but as part of our release strategy, we have decided not to release with known issues that would be inconvenient for our partners and customers.

Anyways, - now only 2½ months after the product release, it looks like we’re ready for the official release. These days, we’re passing the conversion tool to yet another test cycle, and if nothing pops up, - release day.