[Typo3-dev] Is anybody working on a project to store files inside the typo3 database?

[Kevin Fredrick]

*** We are possibly looking to sponsor the development of this module. ***

With NFS you are still stuck with a single master File Server. Yes the 
Web farm could read and write to a shared drive/NFS. The master server 
is the biggest problem, one point of failure. Yes NFS can be setup in a 
way to allow the needed features but that would add complexity to the 
problem.

Using the database, a file would be treated as just another content 
element (with some sort of interface).

A database has some number of files; they would be visible as database 
records in Typo3. A module would allow you to manage your files (digital 
assets). Adding a content element (or possible a tag code <file>) you 
could provide access to the files from the front-end. Since they are now 
true database records they can have all of the benefits of regulate 
content elements (access control, …).

--- Examples ---

Code in content element:

<ul>
   <li><file>34780</file></li>
   <li><file>5435</file></li>
</ul>

Would produce:

    * <a …>Library Staff Handbook</a> (PDF, 31Kb)
    * <a …>Vacation form</a> (MS Word, 12kb)


Content element:

   File directory list of SysFolder  3722

Would produce:

   (A nice customizable interface for browsing file.)


Jan-Hendrik Heuing [netfielders] wrote:

> Nothing on the way as far as I know. But why do you not just add a common
> filebase for the files and include them via NFS (no replication via NFS),
> then you'd not produce that much overhead with the database-server...
> 
> jh
> 
> "Kevin Fredrick" <fredrikr at ipfw.edu> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:mailman.1065728520.27750.typo3-dev at lists.netfielders.de...
> 
>>Is anybody working on a project to store files inside the typo3
>>database? We are in real need of this feature.
>>
>>Yes, I know about the problems of storing files inside a database. But
>>we already have an electronic document management system (PHP, MySQL)
>>with 15,000+ users and 4,000+ TXT, HTML, XML, PDF, Word, Sound, and
>>Video files.
>>
>>The problem with the current file problem is replication. We have a
>>database cluster and a Web server farm. When a user needs to access a
>>file (delete, upload, edit, …) they need to do that work from a master
>>server in the Web server farm. Then the server farm replicates the files
>>to its servers. Yes you can us NFS (…ok…), rsync/ssh (…better…), or
>>scp/ssh (…ok…) with some type of cron/batch system.
>>
>>We tend to add Word, PDF, or media files to a Web site on a daily basis
>>and the bottleneck is that master server. Our database cluster handles
>>replication and load balancing very well. Moving files or changing
>>content into the database would allow for more timely updates. Caching
>>could help with the need to retrieve the files from a database and
>>server them up to the user (similar to the way typo3 pages/content is
>>cached).
>>
> 
> 
>