Ruby on Rails to Handle Multi-site Solution

Rails
1

I have recently taken on a job that is allowing me to overhaul the
current
architecture of an enterprise website. This current site has many
departments it must handle and is relied on by 1000s of users within the
company. My first decision is to decide what language I want to use on
the
new platform. It is currently a Sharepoint .Net site and is a nightmare
to
work with. We will essentially be blowing up the current version and
starting over. However, with this new edition there are a lot of new
features that must get integrated into and this is where my knowledge
and
history with Ruby gets hazy. I have a few Ruby developers at my
disposal,
but I wanted to reach out to this community to see if you think my goals
and Ruby are a suitable pair.

Here are some of the new things we will be adding:

  • One major overarching site with numerous micro-sites attached to
    it,
    multi-site control.
  • A global CMS with access only by the admin and specific team
    members.
    • This global CMS will contain all the information, statistics and
      access to all attached micro-sites.
    • This global CMS does not have to contain the files for each CMS,
      but will allow the admin and developers to access any CMS on our
      system to
      update those sites if needed.
  • Each micro-site will have their own user privileges and logins.
    These
    users will only manage content for their site. In the end the
    contributors
    for this site won’t even know this is attached to the larger site.
    • The micro-sites will be robust and developed by this core team.
      We
      will be managing the top core micro-sites underneath our corporate
      one.
      However, the chief editor for each micro-site and their team will
      require
      credentials to manage content.
  • Certain micro-sites will be made by the users themselves. The way
    we
    plan to achieve this is by providing multiple templates for them to
    choose
    from. Once they select a template they can place their content in
    it. It
    is a very basic system set in place to aid our community in providing
    and
    managing their website for them. This platform will still allow them
    the
    ability to edit their own content. In return for this we will have a
    section on their site we can promote our business updates. These
    business
    updates will come from a single point in the corporate CMS.
    • An example of all this would be creating an overarching website
      about a soccer league for a specific city. Each microsite
      underneath that
      would be the specific team. Each team would make their site using
      our
      platform, on their own domain name. Our CMS will provide them all
      they
      need to add content, but keeping it very simple for non-web
      developers.

These are my main concerns in looking for if Ruby will be the right
solution. The way I have been looking at it is, there is a mothership
CMS
and then lots of smaller ones underneath it and they branch off from
there.
Our mothership will be able to manage everything that is going on, but
we
plan to hand over the keys for each smaller site underneath to the
respective user.

The mothership website will have all its own requirements with handling
each department’s content publishing, version control, quality
assurance,
and user credentials. However, I am comfortable Rails will be able to
provide this part.

What does this look like to the Ruby community? This is a very large
project that will take serious time to succeed at. However, if linking
up
CMS hierarchy is possibility, I would like Rails to be my solution.