LSDS/LSCS impressions to date

Ottawa_IWOV

All:

I have a customer that is contemplating moving to the latest version of Livesite (LSDS/LSCS) to deliver their web properties. They are an existing Teamsite 6.7.2 implementation.

Their current Teamsite environment is static pages (DCR+TPL=HTML) delivered to IIS.

They have seen Teamsite+SitePublisher+Livesite in action and they like the overall value proposition that it gives to non-technical users. They want to implement, "some" page components (header, footer, content blocks, rate this page etc.) using Sitepublisher and Livesite on an exisiting production Intranet site. They are hoping to lgithly-componentize Landing pages, but not all pages will fall under the purveyance of Sitepublisher and Livesite. They would assume that templating and workflow will still be used to manage many lower pages in the site information architecture.

I see some concerns:

* Livesite run-time: what is the expense of loading pages with components and how is caching handled? Livesite is a "product" that dictates certain architecture is followed to ensure a successful implementation.
* Is there there an easy way to architect Landing pages to implement components (Java based) that are accessing content from LSCS without having to introduce all the overhead that is Livesite? Some of my thoughts were to architect/build a simple data-repository (receives content from Sitepublisher/TS etc.) and write custom content access and display services. This is also risky, but a viable option given time and appropriate resources.

I also have concerns about high-jacking a production site with a cut-over to Livesite without there being some big risks, so I was wondering if folks might be able to share their experiences.

Note: the target content from initial migration is small (initially), but it will be scaling rapidly as more clients come on board. We are talking 200,000+ pages and a lot of page views (Intranet for a large Federal Government Organization).

nipper

While I have seen a few things not to like about LSCS/LSDS, I think it is, overall, a pretty good architecture.

I am one a major retailer with thousands of pages and dynamic components, the implementation has had a few hiccups (esp LSDS caching of LSCS objects) but the performance for a busy site is not too bad.

While I think you could consume your own LSCS content with a non-LSDS page, I find it hard to really justify that.