Overview
Connect Sites, a website hosting and content management service, provides easy, self-editable content, simple web forms to create on the fly, and myriad advanced features available via plug-in "modules."
The service features hosting along with ongoing maintenance and management via the Cloud service provider Pantheon to ensure 24x7x365 availability, performance, and security.
Connect Sites features include:
- Drupal and Wordpress Development
- Separate development, test, and live environments
- HTTPS provided via Let's Encrypt
- Fastly's CDN
- New Relic performance monitoring
- 20 GB of dedicated, SSD storage
- High-availability, high-performance web server hosting
- Ongoing maintenance of platform security via regular updates
- Daily backup with the ability to restore data up to two months
- Guaranteed 99.9% uptime via automated system monitoring
- Service calls during normal UCSB business hours (8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays)
- Higher performance tiers, potentially at additional costs above the CGF (core) funded base level
Request Information
Your site will need a web address (URL). Please receive prior authorization to use a domain before requesting to create a site.
- Second-level subdomain: If you have a lab, center, or program type of site, consider partnering with the IT support in your area for a second-level domain. EX: mylab.psych.ucsb.edu
- Top-level subdomain: Top-level domains are reserved for official UC Santa Barbara schools, divisions, departments, institutes, or other campus-level organizational units. EX: engineering.ucsb.edu. Please review the guidelines.
Once secure the domain, submit a request to create a site.
Special Considerations
Our service does not include web design. The Marine Science Institute's (MSI's) Ocean O'Graphics and LSCG's Web Development and Design studios have the expertise to get customers started.
Our service does not include ongoing site updates required by Drupal or WordPress platform. Pantheon offers an automated WebOps tool that performs updates for your sites. We recommend planning to undergo a site upgrade every four to five years by coordinating with your developer.
Support
Visit the IT Services Catalog at ucsb.service-now.com/it and follow the same instructions as above, or call x5000 or (805) 893-5000 for assistance.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
The Service Level Agreement for this service is based on Pantheon.io and typically has 99.99% availability.
UCSB Web Theme
The UCSB Web Theme is an out-of-box website-building solution for university websites. It offers pre-built page layouts, modular design tools, and continuous enhancement free of charge. The Web Theme is currently available for Drupal. Learn more at Web Theme User Guide site.
This is a sample image of the UC Santa Barbara web theme, available to all departments.
Connect Web Analytics
Connect uses Google Web Analytics as the tool for web usage discovery, collecting information to improve functionality and web content, and to monitor performance. Data is used to help answer specific questions about the usage and performance of the web site or individual web pages.
Google Sites
UC Santa Barbara continues to support Google Sites. However, at this time we advise against usage of this product due to lack of technical support and minimal customization of these sites. In the future, we plan address these shortcomings through local resources and coordination with Google.