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polarwarp-gmail - 2/1/2009 4:47:18 PM
   
Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
I've read about how to deploy a site onto a production server by the various methods (export then import site, db backup & recovery + copy web files) - however how do we best handle incremental changes. Most likely these will be new controls imported into the portal engine.. maybe some content changes. We need to ensure however that we do not overwrite content changes that the client will have made in staging/production environments so can't just follow the initial setup process.

Also - does your licensing copy with a 3 environment setup - or will you charge us 3 license fees for the one site?

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kentico_jurajo - 2/3/2009 1:47:11 AM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Hi,

You can run Kentico CMS in a web farm - http://www.kentico.com/docs/devguide/web_farm_support_overview.htm.

But if you want to have only development - production machines, it is recommended to make the changes only on the development machine otherwise the changes on the production can be overwritten. You can use content staging and to ensure the consistency, you must edit the web site only on one side - http://www.kentico.com/docs/devguide/overview11.htm.

Best Regards,
Juraj Ondrus

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dmeyer-92y - 11/12/2010 5:02:36 PM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Our site has not launched yet. Im interested in using Content Staging for our CMS Editors and disabling CMS Desk on production. However, Im not sure how they would review BizForms submissions? It looks like content staging does not support synchronizing BizForm data: http://devnet.kentico.com/docs/devguide/index.html?module_content_staging_overview.htm Is there any way to get the BizForm Data synchronized to the Staging server?

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Kentico Consulting
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kentico_borisp - 11/16/2010 8:50:34 AM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Hello,

You can either use the export/import feature or you can create a custom scheduled task to synchronize it manually using our BizForm API.

Best regards,
Boris Pocatko

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trint.ladd@altn.com - 2/6/2009 10:01:12 AM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Our environment sounds similar to yours. We have two developers with their own installations. We have one staging server and two production servers.

Content editors only access the staging server via CMS Desk. They deploy content changes from there to live using Kentico's content staging. There are rare cases when they must access the production boxes via CMS desk (Bizforms, etc. We are way behind on Kentico versions and can't stage metadata yet.)

We developers (creating templates and controls) check our code into source control and build releases to common directory.

We then *copy* all the files in the build directory onto the staging server (after making a backup of the staging site code).

This way we only overwrite new files (controls, dlls, etc.) and leave unchanged files and files (created by the CMS) untouched.

Once we've tested out the new code on staging, we copy from the build directory onto both production boxes in the same way.

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support-internetgeeks.co.uk - 7/15/2009 11:20:10 AM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
We have an internal development version where templates/controls etc are developed and where the sites are first built. We also have a production version where clients can login to update content etc. When a site is first deployed we export the site from dev and import it into production, however, after this point we’re a little lost as to how to manage ongoing changes. If we make changes to our development version and follow the import/export method, then not all changes are imported into production which leaves the site in a bit of a mess.

We’re thinking about using the content staging option but this presents other problems. Because changes can only be made on one side we will need to allow clients access to what is effectively our development area. I guess the option there is to configure another environment....

Can anyone else share their experiences with site development/deployments?

Many thanks,

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support-internetgeeks.co - 7/23/2009 5:57:50 AM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Hi,
Can anyone share their experiences? We seem to be having lots of problems getting content smoothly from dev to production.

Many thanks,
Kevin,

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Kentico Consulting
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kentico_borisp - 7/24/2009 3:13:05 AM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Hello,

You can find some ideas of publishing of the content in our developer's guide at the following link.

http://devnet.kentico.com/docs/devguide/deployment_to_the_live_server.htm

Best Regards,
Boris Pocatko

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Deployment Headaches - 9/29/2009 2:10:05 PM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Can you provide some more details about your build directory? Do you mean that you have been able to deploy changes from your development environment into staging entirely using file copies? If so, how do you handle the entities that Kentico stores in the database instead of the file system (e.g. custom document types, transformations and queries, custom fields on system tables, the CMS-maintained CSS stylesheets, etc)?

I have also tried using file copies, instead of the Kentico deployment tools. Unfortunately, I keep running across entities that are maintained by developers, but are stored in the database rather than on the file system. I thought the "Save all virtual objects to disk" button that is used for pre-compiled websites would take care of this, but no such luck.

I am constantly missing something when I attempt to deploy the latest development changes into another environment. Any help is appreciated!


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kentico_borisp - 11/16/2010 8:44:45 AM
   
RE:Deployment from Dev to Staging to Production..
Hello,

If you are using the backup-restore approach then you need to backup and restore also the database. Copying just the files won't work, because as you correctly stated, the main part of the system is saved in the database.

Best regards,
Boris Pocatko