Canada
Want to grow Drupal? Put on a DrupalCamp
I just got back from a great trip to DrupalCamp Toronto. It's always very valuable to meet fellow Drupal people, to learn how all of us use Drupal, and to brainstorm about our future.
It is fascinating to think that only a few years ago, the main DrupalCon was smaller than today's DrupalCamps. It's even more staggering when you realize that on any given weekend, there are probably several DrupalCamps happening in cities all around the world. It blows my mind.
In-person meetings have been instrumental to Drupal's success and growth. If you want to grow Drupal in your area, consider to put on a DrupalCamp and to organize regular meet-ups. It is the best way to bootstrap and foster your local Drupal community.
Via Rail using Drupal
Via Rail, a large train operator in Canada, is now using Drupal for its main website. They carry approximately four million passengers annually so like with any train operator, their website is obviously key to their business.
NHL using Drupal
Canada's National Hockey League (NHL) is probably the highest level of professional ice hockey in world. With league revenue totaling 2.5 billion US dollars last year, the NHL is also big business. Joshua Schroeder, a Canadian Drupal developer, reported that the NHL has begun using Drupal for several interactive sites that allow fans to participate in the annual all-star game voting, and weekly fan favorite awards. Example NHL sites built with Drupal include: All these sites seem to be built with Drupal 6. More proof that Drupal 6 is getting serious traction. Good stuff!
UPEI goes Drupal
While on the subject of Canada, the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) is moving many of their public facing websites to Drupal. So far, 85 UPEI sites use Drupal. Ryan Palmer, the driving force behind this work, told me that the many Faculty of Arts department sites should be online by the end of November, and that many other smaller sites are in various stages of completion. One year down the road, they expect to be in the 300-site range.
Each site on the UPEI system was built as an independent site on its own database, but run from a shared code base using Drupal's multi-site features. According to Ryan, the UPEI chose Drupal for its ability to centrally manage the sites, its LDAP integration that allows centralized control of user authentication, Drupal's ability to enforce the university's brand across sites, and the fact that Drupal can serve 30 million hits per month from a single server.
According to Ryan, the University of Calgary went through a similar implementation in late 2006 and early 2007. UPEI also hosted a gathering with the University de Moncton, who have just completed an 18-month study of their public websites that concluded a proper CMS was necessary and that Drupal was the best choice. At the University of Ghent, where I work, our department has a similar multi-site Drupal setup albeit with fewer sites.
What is interesting is that more and more universities start to embrace Drupal by moving smaller departmental sites to Drupal. It is an emerging trend, and one I think we should support. If you're into reading tea leaves, this might mean that we'll see an uptake in Drupal being used an enterprise-grade content management system. After all, universities are complex enterprises that often employ hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
Bonjour Montreal
I'm currently in Montreal (Canada) for OOPSLA, where Andy will present our statistically rigorous Java performance evaluation paper and where I'll talk about our work on using hardware performance monitors to drive dynamic compilation of Java applications.
In addition to the PhD related festivities, Drupal rockstar Angie Byron is organizing a Drupal dinner on Tuesday evening. Drupal users unite!
The WIFI at the Hyatt Regency in Montreal sucks monkey balls. I feel incredibly unproductive, cross and out of sync when I wake up in the middle of the night. So much for working the Drupal 6 issue queues ...
The view from my room in the Hyatt Regency.
Vancouver night skiing
After day 2 of the Open Source CMS Summit, some of us went night skiing on Cypress Moutain, located only 30 minutes from downtown Vancouver (Canada). From the downhill runs, you have a spectacular view on the city.
