[Koha] Schools Consortia Idea

[Rick Welykochy]

Mike McCormack wrote:

> 1.	Many Instances of Koha on one Box
>
> Install one instance of MySQL containing one database for each school with
> a corresponding instance of Koha/Apache per school. There would be a limit
> to the number of instances that could be installed on a Linux box and any
> more than 5 would probably get difficult to manage and would use a lot of
> system resources.

This is probably the simplest option for you. It has been accomplished before
and has been discussed on this list.

You only need one instance of MySQL to run multiple databases. Each instance of
Koha reuires its own database, but all databases can run on one MySSQl server.

You only need one Apache as well, with one Virtual Host for each Koha.

Then all you need to do is multiple configuration management, i.e.
install a Koha source tree for each instance you want. I would not advise
trying to save space and share one source code tree, since you are bound
to make minor tweaks for each library.

Each instance of Koha requires its own config in /etc, which specifies
unique things like the database name, super user name and password, etc.etc.

If you run out of machine resources, another Linux server can be
deployed. Hardware is cheap these days :) But I am sure you can run
more than five instances on a reasonably provisioned Linux box, i.e.
2 GB++ RAM and 100 GB  or so of disk, at a wild guess.

Another option is to treat each school as a different branch of the same
library and run all of them under one single instances of Koha. I am a developer,
not a librarian, so cannot advise you well enough on the differences between
several branches of one library and a consortium of unrelated libraries.


cheers
rickw


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Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

You should be open minded, but not so open minded that your brain falls out.
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