DLF Forum Fall 2013 - Islandora Sync

A discussion about the need and development of Islandora Sync, a Drupal module to synchronize Islandora objects in Fedora to Drupal Entities

Transcript

1. Islandora Sync Bringing Drupal and Fedora closer 2013 - DLF Forum : Austin, Texas Kristian Allen Programmer - UCLA Digital Library
2. Discussion Outline • UCLA Digital Library transition to Islandora Overview of shift to Islandora within UCLA DL • Digital Library community development options • Islandora Sync details Why the need? What does it do? • Questions
3. UCLA Digital Library Snapshot • 250 Digital Collections • 1.8MM+ Digital Asset Files • 20MM+ Metadata database records • 35TB+ Disk storage
4. Growing Pains • Current system Locally Developed: Java EE / Struts 1.02 Oracle Database, Search and Persistence frameworks JBoss on Windows • Challenges Domain specific knowledge needed for development Proprietary software limits ability to leverage the community Bolting on partial solutions can become problematic
5. The Community to the Rescue • Blacklight / Hydra Ruby / Rails • Islandora PHP / Drupal • Common Platforms Apache Solr for search and discovery Fedora Commons for repository and storage
6. The Appeal of Drupal • Instant access to “lego block” code Thousands of modules help reduce development time Lower barrier to entry to encourage participation • UCLA Library move to Drupal CMS shift to Drupal within UCLA Library increases local expertise • Trend towards Drupal on campus Shift from Plone to Drupal in other departments
7. Islandora Development • The Islandora Way != The Drupal Way Assets and metadata stored only in Fedora repository Limits which Drupal modules can be used out of the box • Leveraging the Drupal community Harnessing the collective power of Drupal ecosystem is limited • Option: Make Islandora more Drupal-ish? Yep, we sure can!
8. Islandora Sync • Joint project with Discovery Garden • Goal to mask Fedora data as Drupal data • Fully open source on GitHub
9. Core Features • Ability to map Drupal Content Types to Fedora Content Models • Map Drupal Fields to Fedora Datastreams or metadata elements • Replicate Fedora RELS-EXT references with Drupal Relation entities
10. Fedora Repo Islandora Data Entry Forms Native Drupal Entities Islandora Sync Workflow Islandora Modules Drupal Modules 1) User updates an Islandora object, saves data to Fedora 2) With Islandora Sync enabled, hooks are fired to populate native Drupal entities with Fedora data Views Services Gallery Gmap Basic Image Large Image Book PDF Audio Video
11. First iteration, be aware... • Works for UCLA DL workflow The UCLA Digital Library is the gatekeeper for our Fedora instance Changes via processes outside of Islandora might not be sync’d • One way sync Initial use cases placed most weight on Fedora to Drupal direction Hooks in place for Drupal push to Fedora • Scalability Still need to tweak Drupal for performance for large imports
12. Islandora Data Access Options • Access to Solr index • Access to Fedora REST API • Access via Services Module via Sync Additional benefit of Drupal security options
13. Where we hope to go • Foster increased community development By lowering barrier, we hope to encourage increased development • Continued improvement of core code Goal to contribute regular development to support roll into Islandora core • Increased Drupal Features packages MODS image mapping example is available now
14. References UCLA Digital Library http://digital2.library.ucla.edu UCLA Library GitHub https://github.com/UCLALibrary Islandora Sync GitHub repo https://github.com/UCLALibrary/islandora_sync Kristian Allen kallen2@library.ucla.edu Islandora http://www.islandora.ca Islandora VM (7x.1-2 Ubuntu 32 bit) http://islandora.ca/downloads Discovery Garden http://www.discoverygarden.ca