LaunchPadCMS

LaunchPadCMS is an Open Source Content Management System designed principally for educational institutions with an interest in using Free/Open Source Software in providing their Web Communications and Marketing needs.

Using years of experience with hard to use proprietary tools, LaunchPadCMS was at first a solution for the needs of a limited budget. With the marked success of the product in an education production environment the desire to share this with others arose to raise awareness of it and grow its possibility through expanded use.

Benefits

* Central management of templating ensures brand consistency across all organization Websites
* Consolidate Web applications into a single managed environment to drive down operational overhead
* Empower content editors throughout the organization to manage and update their own content for faster changes with less overhead from IT
* Provides simple editing environment for non-technical content editors

Technical features

* The system is written in C, PHP, MySQL and JavaScript with options for other databases and features an easy to use interface for clients and administrators to use.
* Setup is script driven and is similar to commonly used command line interface installation applications in use by administrators of all skillsets.
* User and Group administration is completely integrated and can be tied in with more complex systems such as LDAP, Database Authentication and others.
* Advanced page requirements are fulfilled with a reusable component system that allows shared object use across all pages underneath the integrated system Access control list.
* Cache system manages file system caching of common assets.
* Database tools move tables from disk based to memory based MySQL if resources support move.
* Backend system management tools raise the ability of the system to keep itself alive and uptimes for both the database(s) and website(s) reach 500-600 days easily with no intervention from system administrators.
* System also supports the ability to add new hardware without the hardware and software setup downtime.
* Ability to add Domains and Sites without restarting server for continuous operation during peak periods.
* Aliasing tools to work with name changes or spelling mistakes.

A typical system to provide a fully functional website consists of the following:

* Computer with enough hardware to accommodate your needs.
* Unix operating system
* Apache Web Server
* Network connection

An example of the above in current production provides the current stats:

* Intel Pentium 4 Xeon 3.2 GHz 4GB Ram
* 1000Mb/s network connection to a 100Mb/s Internet connection
* 3,000 unique requests a day.
* +1.4 million total unique requests over a current uptime of 365 days.
* +5.8 million page requests over the same period.