[Isis-users] Manual for installing ABCD under Linux in AWS - Amazon Web Services (in English) => ABCD Docker container is the next step

[De Smet Egbert]

Hello,

first of all congratulations again to Wenke, the manual is now also available in very well-written English and his efforts put ABCD into the 'cloud'-era.
The choice of a CentOS Linux has its consequences, e.g. some path-names and 'yum' instead of 'apt' (but that is it basically..!) are different from the Debian-based packages I prepare myself for the full ABCD. I might try to give some more instructions on different Linuxes in the installation chapter of the ABC of ABCD manual. 

However I suppose that still some typical ABCD-users might remain uncertain or not-enough-self-confident to engage into the endeavour of this type of cloud-based installation, despite its advantages - which are correctly described in the manual itself. Obviously a full rather than partial (iAH only) installation should be tested and described, which potentially opens up another 'can of worms', mostly due to variable versions of (PHP-)extensions, dependencies, environment variables, PHP-version etc.
Currently I am testing ABCD in OpenSUSE as well, only PHP7.1 giving some problem in Secs-Web while PHP7.0 works well. This is a typical problem of PHP, adding to the reason mentioned above to search for still better solutions.

Therefore I am currently preparing an ABCD docker-container, which I think should be the next step and still simplifying the installation of and running ABCD a lot. Some immediate advantages I see are, amongst others : 
- installation of ABCD requires only installing docker in either your Linux or Windows and downloading the 'image' (larger than current installers but still much less than a full Virtual Machine);
- the image contains everything needed (e.g. the right OS-environment, Apache/PHP and the latest updated version of the PHP-scripts) but not your own databases, while this will be a directory (folder) mapped from your local computer into the container, meaning you still maintain your own local databases on your own server (and you still remain responsible for e.g. backing up);
- ABCD still runs 'locally' i.e. without the need for a stable, fast Internet (as is the case for AWS and other cloud-services).
- no longer a variety of ABCD-installations (Windows/Linux, 32- or 64-bits) need to be maintained. ABCD 2.0 currently already adapts itself fully to either Linux of Windows but within a container this is even no longer necessary.
[- portability : not yet tested/studied (experts are welcome to join in on this !) but maybe ABCD can be run from a USB-stick for demo- and didactic purposes ?]
One disadvantage could be the bigger size of the image file to be downloaded, but this is a once-only issue.

After finishing (building and testing extensively) this container/image probably there will be another container build for EmpWeb.
So more good things are hopefully still on the horizon.

Egbert de Smet
Universiteit Antwerpen
________________________________________
From: isis-users <isis-users-bounces+egbert.desmet=ua.ac.be at iccisis.org> on behalf of Wenke Adam <wenkeadam at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2017 3:28 AM
To: Isis Comunidad
Subject: [Isis-users] Manual for installing ABCD under Linux in AWS - Amazon Web Services (in English)

Dear Isis friends,

I was inspired today, and managed to complete the translation to English of the manuaI I sent to the list in Spanish yesterday.

I will be happy to receive feedback and comments from colleagues who try out AWS for ABCD. (The account is free for a full first year).

I know Renate Morgenstern has done it. She chose Ubuntu as OS, while I kept to the Amazon Linux (CentOS).

Regards

wenke

--
Wenke Adam
Asesora Sistemas de Doc & Inf
Santiago
Chile
Cel: +56-9-890 21 630