French Presidency: The Elysée goes Symfony
Did you know that Symfony is used by the French government? Find out how SensioLabs helped the French Presidency to create a modern, long-lasting website that's completely secure.
The new website's first achievement is its durability in all situations
Marion Doublet, responsible for digital projects at the French Presidency.
The company/The French Presidency
The French Presidency has recently updated its website to enable citizens' access to the President's activities. From design to development, the project's objectives focused on placing citizens at the forefront of modernizing and transforming the digital tools of the French Presidency.
The Elysée website publishes updates from the French President, including press conferences, speeches, articles, the President's agenda, interviews, and more. It is also possible to send a message to the French President or First Lady to voice concerns or share thoughts.
The challenge: High standards of quality and security were a top priority for the SensioLabs team from the outset of the project.
From the very beginning of the project, the SensioLabs team had several technical requirements to consider:
A new website that can easily scale and be modified. It must accommodate additional sections and features depending on current events.
Administrators who are not developers can easily use it. The Digital Communications department aims to involve as many contributors as possible on the website, with varying levels of authorization.
Security is impeccable. The French President's website is highly vulnerable to cyber threats. The goal is to secure the back office, ensuring it is only accessible to authorized personnel while maintaining top-notch performance.
Additionally, the website must be accessible to a broad audience and comply with high digital accessibility standards like RGAA and W3C.
A site that adapts to visitor load. It must handle heavy traffic, especially during major news events, without crashing and within your hosting budget.
The solution : Agile Migration to Symfony
An Agile AMOA workshop was conducted with the Digital Communications department of the French Presidency.
The Scrum method was applied to customize developments according to the exact requirements of the French Presidency.
A one-shot migration was executed, allowing for an overnight shift from the old to the new site, with perfect timing.
Load tests in cooperation with the hosting provider were executed before the migration.
The story
First of all, SensioLabs, responsible for back-end development of the new site, organized an Agile Bootstrap workshop with the Digital Communications Department of the French President's Office.
The Scrum methodology allowed us to precisely tailor developments to needs and break them down into user stories, bringing together all project players, including CDN, graphic design, hosting, anti-DDOS, and more. Development lasted six months before releasing the first Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
French presidency: the Elysée goes Symfony
The migration occurred in one shot, with the transition from the previous website to the new one taking place overnight after choosing the right timing. Functionally, the Scrum methodology helped to mitigate risks.
The main technical challenge was importing the old data into the new platform, given that the two sites were not structured similarly. The expertise provided by a SensioLabs specialist helped overcome a challenge by creating customized scripts using Symfony to extract, convert, and upload the information onto the web.
To address security issues, automated testing (Behat, PHPUnit) and continuous deployment (Ansible) were implemented. A full security audit was carried out before the site went live. Load tests were also carried out in collaboration with the hosting provider to ensure that the site could cope with peaks in traffic.
The benefits: A Robust, Scalable and Easy to Use Site
"The new website's first achievement is its durability in all situations," explains Marion Doublet, who heads digital projects for the French Presidency. Marion Doublet highlights that the new site has admirably withstood all challenges to date.
Even when subjected to several DDOS attacks, the site remained fully operational. In addition, thanks to the scalability afforded us by Symfony, the new site can easily scale from 10,000 to 150,000 concurrent visitors at a time, using an HTTP caching strategy. During high-traffic events, such as major news, the French Presidency no longer needs to add extra machines to keep the site up and running.
The French President's site is now scalable. Continuous deployment procedures have streamlined production releases and site upgrades, which are now semi-automated. The French President's Office can introduce individual new features or batches of features into production as needed.
The site's responsiveness has significantly increased. Multiple contributors can now work independently on a publication concurrently, eliminating the need for administrator intervention. "Moreover, the back-office interface is user-friendly. No training is required to publish content!" adds Marion Doublet.
Last but not least, the migration to the Symfony framework enables long-term site management through a simplified version control system.
