CiviCRM / WordPress on Google App Engine Infrastructure

[dvhirst]

Hello all,

I'm working to implement CiviCRM on WordPress within the Google Apps for Non-Profits environment.  I'd welcome contact from any folks out there who have trod this path recently, seeking advice and feedback about the process and any wrinkles along the way.  TIA for sharing.

Regards.

[Michael McAndrew]

within the Google Apps for Non-Profits environment

As far as I know, google does not offer any hosting that will allow you to put up a CiviCRM and Wordpress site. But I do know lots of organisations that use Wordpress for their website, CiviCRM for their CRM and google apps for their mail, calendars, google docs, etc.

What you are asking is kind of broad, so kind of hard to answer.  You might want to try asking more specific questions, or if you just want to chat to people about their CiviCRM experiences more generally, maybe try https://www.civicrm.org/ambassadors/contact

Hope that is helpful,
Michael

[dvhirst]

As far as I know, google does not offer any hosting that will allow you to put up a CiviCRM and Wordpress site.

Google does offer WordPress hosting support now, as noted in their QuickStart article http://googlecloudplatform.github.io/appengine-php-wordpress-starter-project/.  Given the Google App Engine capability, I'd like to hear from anyone who has hosted CiviCRM in that environment.  I'll post back as I work through the process of setting it up.  So far I've put up a trial XAMPP localhost implementation and have that running.  I am working to do the equivalent in the Google App SDK environment (localhost) and then on the Google App Engine live.  I'd just like to compare notes / issues / questions with anyone else who has gone down this path.  TIA.

[dvhirst]

So far, this has been a successful effort .  I have WordPress and CiviCRM installed on the local Google App Engine (GAE) environment, running with one issue:  GAE does not allow PHP/CURL, which seems necessary for cron jobs and news updates.  Research indicates that there are alternatives, but coding such for CiviCRM is beyond my current level of knowledge / capability.  If anyone out there knows how to set up WGET as an alternative for CURL, I'd appreciate a return contact.  My next step is to deploy the local setup to the GAE infrastructure and see how things work there.  Feedback and comments welcome.  If a Wiki page about the setup process would be useful, I've kept notes and could put up such a page.  Let me know what you think.

[Donald Lobo]

Yes, please do document this on the wiki. I suspect over a period of time more folks might want to use GAE to host WP+Civi

lobo

[dvhirst]

Don, sorry for the long delayed response... 

Here's the current status:  Google has implemented PHP cURL in a beta implementation of the App Engine environment.  I ran my configuration through the updated environment and got a fatal error, which I reported to Google.  Over the past weekend, while away from home, I got a reply on my report identifying a missing Microsoft DLL, with instructions for loading the DLL.  When I get home later this week I will give the fix a try and report results here.  I am still keeping notes on my process and will post them to the Wiki when I achieve success.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Don Hirst
 

[Michael McAndrew]

Google does offer WordPress hosting support now, as noted in their QuickStart article http://googlecloudplatform.github.io/appengine-php-wordpress-starter-project/.

That's cool - I stand corrected. Google didn't make it easy with their choice of names "google apps", vs. "google app engine" http://google.about.com/od/googleforbusiness/f/appsandEngine.htm

I am still keeping notes on my process and will post them to the Wiki when I achieve success.

That's awesome - please do

[dvhirst]

Hi, It's been a while since I posted on this thread...  As life happens, I've given up on the Google App Engine implementation for now, and have moved over the Amazon Web Services to see if that works any better.  I'm still tracking my process and documenting as I go; when successful, I plan to update the Wiki.  Thanks for your interest.

Original post - 12 January 2015.  This update, 8 February 2015. 

OK, it's almost a month later, and I can report that the AWS EC2 implementation of LAMP / WordPress / CiviCRM is up and running.  The implementation path was pretty smooth, no major blockages along the way.  I've learned a lot, with many thanks to the community on this forum for help given.  I have to be away for about 3 weeks, but expect to share the development process document on the wiki in March / April. 

Regards,

DVH