One of University IT (UIT)'s priority initiatives is to provide modern, secure, and managed cloud-based web alternatives through the Web Content Management program. The program is a collection of efforts to replace the current Andrew File System (AFS)-based web content management systems. AFS is minimally supported and hosts a number of websites created by individuals and other organizations in unsupported, outdated and vulnerable versions of web tools.
By 2021, UIT will establish new vendor platforms, upgrade established platforms, and assist the web content management community in determining the closest-fit solution for their needs.
The program comprises eight projects. Below is an overview of each project.
Stanford’s vast web presence is maintained by many distributed groups across campus and includes a wide variety of applications and hosting platforms, including the legacy AFS platform.
UIT will reduce instances of Drupal on AFS by removal of inactive websites and provide alternative hosting options and guidance for owners of active websites.
Stanford Sites Drupal CMS, UIT’s primary Drupal cloud service, currently hosts 2,000+ sites. To continue receiving security updates and community support, the Drupal service must be updated to the latest version of Drupal by November 2022.
The goal of the multi-year Drupal project is to develop a central system that improves reliability and security for the Stanford Sites Drupal platform as a whole and allows sites to automatically receive regular security patches and upgrades.
Form Builder, the Stanford Web Forms service, currently relies on AFS, and UIT announced Google Forms as its replacement in January 2020. Google Forms is a secure, easily-managed web forms solution that provides many of the same features and functions as Form Builder.
A cloud-based WordPress hosting and vendor-provided support option will be made available as an alternative to the cloud Drupal platform.
Static HTML, CGI-enabled websites on AFS will be documented, and University IT will communicate about alternative hosting options for Stanford users, groups, and departments.
UIT will change the process for provisioning AFS user volumes to new students, faculty, and staff. New users will no longer be auto-provisioned with AFS user volumes. Should a new user need a personal AFS user volume, a request can be submitted through services.stanford.edu.
UIT will move virtual name redirects (vanity URL services) to a cloud platform and move proxy URL redirects to a vanity URL redirect cloud infrastructure.
UIT will move the virtual name proxy service to a cloud-based vanity URL service.
Read the latest news and blog updates about the program: