Over the next few weeks, we plan to go live with our new-look site, CMS2. You may have already had a play with it as a beta tester using the link on the news page. Soon, it will be the only way to access abbywinters.com, and a massively improved way as well!
The definition of the completed go-live is when all users (admins, members, guests, models, affiliates) are using CMS2 exclusively, and CMS1 is taken down for good (meaning old old-look site can no longer be accessed).
To ensure there is a little downtime as possible, we have a few techniques we'll be employing:
(1) Extensive testing. CMS2 has been tested internally by staff, coders and designers. Then it was Alpha-tested with a small group of expert members for around 8 weeks. For another 8 weeks, it was beta-tested by a wider group of users. For the last few weeks, it has been at Release Candidate 1, where all AW members have full access to use CMS2 (or CMS1) at their discretion. Most people have been using CMS2, and thoroughly enjoying it!
Throughout this testing process, our testers have been finding bugs and reporting them. Each week or so, we fix all the bugs and upload the changes to the site, and wait for more bug reports, while we wrap up the million small details of the new system.
(2) Incremental changes. The go-live procedure is staged, meaning we make many small incremental changes to reach the full go-live, not just flick one big switch, hoping for the best. That means we can test components, and groups of users (which is roughly analogous to load on the servers), and gently increase it as each stage demonstrates no problems. Of course, we have done load testing, but it's difficult to accurately mimic the randomness of real users, spiders and so on.
(3) Rollbacks. Every incremental change can be quickly and easily rolled back to the previous stage if there is a major problem.
(4) Changes happen when people are around. We make sure when we do make an incremental change, web dev staff are around for at least a few hours to ensure there is time to notice and fix or rollback.
The switchover should ensure there is no downtime for anyone, but if there is, we ask for you to be patient as we make this major change.
The go-live procedure will staged like this:
All of our Customer Service contacts still work, so if you have a problem please let us know so we can help you sort it out. You can submit a bug report, or a feature request. Note that there is a link on every shoot page linking to that shoot in CMS1, so it's easy to switch between the two versions of abbywinters.com. This will remain until all bugs are resolved.
The definition of the completed go-live is when all users (admins, members, guests, models, affiliates) are using CMS2 exclusively, and CMS1 is taken down for good (meaning old old-look site can no longer be accessed).
To ensure there is a little downtime as possible, we have a few techniques we'll be employing:
(1) Extensive testing. CMS2 has been tested internally by staff, coders and designers. Then it was Alpha-tested with a small group of expert members for around 8 weeks. For another 8 weeks, it was beta-tested by a wider group of users. For the last few weeks, it has been at Release Candidate 1, where all AW members have full access to use CMS2 (or CMS1) at their discretion. Most people have been using CMS2, and thoroughly enjoying it!
Throughout this testing process, our testers have been finding bugs and reporting them. Each week or so, we fix all the bugs and upload the changes to the site, and wait for more bug reports, while we wrap up the million small details of the new system.
(2) Incremental changes. The go-live procedure is staged, meaning we make many small incremental changes to reach the full go-live, not just flick one big switch, hoping for the best. That means we can test components, and groups of users (which is roughly analogous to load on the servers), and gently increase it as each stage demonstrates no problems. Of course, we have done load testing, but it's difficult to accurately mimic the randomness of real users, spiders and so on.
(3) Rollbacks. Every incremental change can be quickly and easily rolled back to the previous stage if there is a major problem.
(4) Changes happen when people are around. We make sure when we do make an incremental change, web dev staff are around for at least a few hours to ensure there is time to notice and fix or rollback.
The switchover should ensure there is no downtime for anyone, but if there is, we ask for you to be patient as we make this major change.
The go-live procedure will staged like this:
- (DONE) All guests who visit abbywinters.com and choose to explore the site from the tour will be sent to CMS2
- ~2000 members will go to CMS2 (beta-www.aw) by default when they log in (no need to click on the link in CMS1)
- ~half of remaining members go to CMS2 by default when they log in
- Remaining members go to CMS2 by default when they log in (all traffic now goes to CMS2 by default)
- CMS1 relegated to old-www.abbywinters.com; CMS2 at www.abbywinters.com
- Sub-domains (dvd, press, affiliates, careers, etc) go live at subdo.abbywinters.com
- Updates stop appearing on CMS1
- CMS1 (and CMS1 subdos) removed entirely
- Boards migrated to new CMS2 design
All of our Customer Service contacts still work, so if you have a problem please let us know so we can help you sort it out. You can submit a bug report, or a feature request. Note that there is a link on every shoot page linking to that shoot in CMS1, so it's easy to switch between the two versions of abbywinters.com. This will remain until all bugs are resolved.
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