Lafayette's new web platform will be in development during Spring 2009 and will be rolled out to campus in Summer 2009. This is a tenative timeline outlining major project milestones.

February 2009

• WordPress Pilot launches to evaluate WordPress MU as a possible lightweight content management solution for the new web platform.

March 2009

• Test www server built using current versions of Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, et. al.

April 2009

• www account data loaded onto test environment. ITS and Public Information begin reviewing data looking for possible problems, code that may need updating, etc.

April-June 2009

• Production web platform built, consisting of a cluster of six blade servers running virtualized versions of existing and new web servers.
• New MySQL service brought online. The new service will be run by two servers, one in AEC, another in Pardee, with data replication between the two.
  » Learn more about the new platform's architecture.

May 2009

• WordPress Pilot concludes and is evaluated.

July 2009

• WordPress MU is moved into production with a "soft launch" in mid-to-late July. ITS begins working with early adopters to move their content to WordPress-powered sites.
  • sites.lafayette.edu goes live as a host for personal and organizational web sites
  • department.lafayette.edu sites become available, either as WordPress sites or as virtual hosts on the new web platform.

June-August 2009

• Production web applications (Moodle, WordPress, iTunes U, MediaWiki) moved from the "webapps-production" server to the new platform.

August 2009

• August 13th: www go3w live on the new platform.

September 2009

• Wide launch of WordPress MU; ITS actively recommends that departments and individuals consider converting their sites to WordPress.

September-November 2009

• Design work begins on "Workbench", a new non-WordPress hosting solution for sites that SFTP, shell access, PHP, Perl and/or MySQL.

July 2010

• The ww2 subdomain is retired; all departmental sites are moved to departmental subdomains (e.g. department name.lafayette.edu) are hosted by WordPress or Workbench. All personal and organizational web sites are moved to sites.lafayette.edu or hosted on Workbench.