Dev Site to Live site:

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Hostmaster
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Dev Site to Live site:

Post by Hostmaster » Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:40 am

Just to share with those of you that may find themselves in the same place I am:

That being having a current live site, and planning to replace it with an Able Commerce site, with Zero Down time being very very important.

Additionally, setting up a Dev site to New LiveSite file Sync.
If your as paranoid as I you like to test all changes first on your dev site prior to making them LIVE.


Tools:

1. http://help.ablecommerce.com/faqs/ablec ... ation_.htm
2. RoboCopy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy
3. Some Paranoia:
IE Use at your Own Risk, Neither Able Commerce or I are responsible for your data in any way by using this information or techniques.

NOTE: Your Custom CSS and selected Theme will not be seen until you restore your database.





Steps
1. Follow http://help.ablecommerce.com/faqs/ablec ... ation_.htm
A: when Entering in your New database information on the same screen as the License information, remember that this will be your live database, and in my case with Paranoia I choose to have different users on the dev Database and the Live Database.
This will also apply to the Step: ** Move the Database from the ORIGINAL to TARGET installation



2. When you get to the Move Files from the ORIGINAL to TARGET installation, If you do this manually be sure to not Overwrite, this is where Robo Copy Comes in handy.

A SET UP Robo Copy to do the work for you. This will also come in handy when testing new things on your Dev site after going live. IE Dev site to New LiveSite file Sync.

Create a SYNCDEVtoLIVE.bat file Place in same directory as RoboCopy

Contents of SYNCDEVtoLIVE.bat

REM Paranoia Step: Backup Live Site to backup Folder first

robocopy D:\Webs\LIVESITCOM D:\Backup\LIVESITCOM /ZB /E /SEC

Rem Copy files From Dev Site to Live Site Excludeing the Config and Licenses

robocopy D:\Webs\DEVSITE D:\Webs\LIVESITCOM /ZB /E /SEC /XF D:\Webs\DEVSITE\web.config /XF D:\Webs\DEVSITE\app_data\commercebuilder.lic /XF D:\Webs\DEVSITE\app_data\database.config /XF D:\Webs\DEVSITE\app_data\encryption.config /XF D:\Webs\DEVSITE\app_data\ablecommerce.config

This Should Work as well with mapped drives on another server.

What the Switches mean :
/ZB : use restartable mode; if access denied use Backup mode.
/E : copy subdirectories, including Empty ones.
/SEC: copy files with SECurity

** Important ** /XF file [file]... :: eXclude Files matching given names/paths/wildcards.

Continue on following how_do_i_move_an_existing_installation_.htm

: ** Move the Database from the ORIGINAL to TARGET installation.
This step was done on SQL 2005 Server.
1 Create a Back up of DEV site Database
2. Take Live site Database Offline.
3. Restore Dev Site Backup Database file to Live Site Database
A: Be sure to rename the restore as Files to The Live site Database File Names, or you could end up overwriting your Dev Site database.
4. Give the Live site database User Access to the New Live Site database.

That should be IT. Worked the first time out for me, after pre testing the robocopy bat scripts to a test directory.

Pete

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Post by sohaib » Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:09 am

Should go to 'Good Reference Posts' I guess.

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Post by DonAshby » Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:17 pm

Hi

Our feeling is that if you are moving an existing site with existing Google Indexed URLs to a new site with new AC 7 type URLs, it is wise to map all your product or infor or any other important pages by way of a 301 Redirect. We did it in Dec with pretty good results.

Don :)

PS. If you dont do this, only your Home page will move with the DNS change and all the other indexed pages will be 404 Page Not Found.

PSS. PETE - Now that you have uploaded from you Dev to Live, how are you syncing up your Dev to the Live production site so that your Dev is kept up to date over time with data from the Live Site...

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Post by Hostmaster » Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:34 pm

Hadn’t gone that far, so far I’ve only been going from Dev to Live, with both data and files.

To reverse it, the File transfer is easy, and well with direct access to the SQL server, that’s not too hard either.

However, you have great point once I do take the site Live, Ill want to replicate back to the Dev site prior to adjusting code or data, for a true testing environment.

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Post by Will » Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:15 am

How did you handle the license issue -- it's tied to the url. If the url is being used for your production site, how are you verifying your deployment worked?

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Post by DonAshby » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:39 am

Yes - I am curious about this too.

I know AC is jamming to get the next release but we find the restrictions for URLs and DEV and TESTING ( 1 URL per license ) to be quite difficult to use. Actually, we have not even figured out how to run a real parallel NON PRODUCTION DEV web site that is live on the internet and that we can process test orders - due to AC License restrictions. We are concerned and wonder about how to do this as we move forward.

Also, it seems to us that this AC 7 product is designed primarily for brand new sites with brand new URLs.... not so much for sites that are moving a URL over. It is quite difficult to do a real test with your existing URL until you put in the real URL and go really live in production - which means you have to take down your existing site for a while and hope the transfer actually works. This is what we did in DEC when we switched over.

SO ... Does anyone know how to properly set up a real functioning DEV only web site ( credit card and PayPal and Google Checkout enabled ) that we can work and test on the internet with the same URL. ??? Otherwise, we are forced to use the Production Site for Final Live QA - not a good scenerio.

Thanks, Don

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Post by Will » Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:10 am

Here's the steps we've taken so far:

- set up and built our development site on a remote web server -- using a temporary url and corresponding temporary license from Able. We aren't doing any development locally.

- did as much of our QA on the dev server (functionality and layout) as possible -- including test transactions

- set up our production site on another remote web server -- using a temporary url and corresponding temporary license from Able

- copied over all files and the database from dev -- did another round of QA -- functionality and layout verification

- got final license from Able for our real production url

The rest of the plan:
- keep our old site running
- switch the DNS to point our real production url to the production site
- update the license on the production site
- pray it works -- if it doesn't have our hosting provider temporarily redirect to our old site
- do final verification testing on the live site

This is definitely a nerve-wracking way to do deployment. I'm hoping Able can come up with a better system for people who already have sites.

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Post by DonAshby » Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:52 am

Hi Will,

Thanks for the info. We did it kinda the opposite. We put up the new site on a different URL ( without test transactions ) and tested it all the best we could while the old site stayed up.

We then build an ISAPI 301 redirect on the new site/

Then we switched DNS old to new and new to old so we could still see both ... hoped for the best ... credit cards worked but that is when we discovered PayPal and Google Checkout did not work. But we kept it going and did not switch back.

We need to do developement - I think we all do - I think after they get the next RC3 release they should look at this. I will suggest it in the Feature List.

Thanks Don :)

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Post by Will » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:18 am

Why weren't you able to do test transactions with the new site on a different URL?

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Post by DonAshby » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:29 am

Hi Will,

We set up our PayPal and Google Checkout Accounts at PayPay and Google respectively with our actual true web site:

http://www.goinginstyle.com

So PayPay and Google wouldnt recognize a test URL which was different from our main account. Maybe we could have done 2 accounts for PayPal and Google ? At least I didnt see how to do it ... so I just decided to go for it and make the switch.

Don

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Post by Will » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:40 am

I see. We're not offering Paypal or Google so that wasn't an issue (yet).

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