Deployment

Deployment is the process of moving data from one environment to another, e.g. from a staging website to production website. The Deployment tool in Dynamicweb provides some basic functionality that makes it easier to transfer data from one installation to another, and removes some of the time consuming manual work that is usually required when doing so.

Deployment provides a one-way data transfer where data is pushed from source to destination:

• It is not meant to be a merge tool, so it is not possible to push and pull changes between two installations at the same time.
• It is not intended for transfering large amounts of data such as products or users - only settings related to these. To transfer data such as products or users please use data integration.

We provide a set of basic configurations for deploying data to the following areas of DW:

• Content
• Ecommerce
• Users
• Forms for Editors

On a technical level the Deployment tool uses a series of providers to move data – files, records in the database, configuration setting, content, etc. – from the source to the destination. It is fairly trivial to use these providers to extend the default data configuration – or create your own from scratch.

It is highly recommended that both installations (source and destination) run on the same assembly versions. Any differences in assembly versions might lead to errors or unexpected results.

Before data can be transferred, at least one destination should be created and configured.

Destinations can be configured by going to Settings > Developer > Deployment > Destinations and clicking Add in the toolbar.

Figure 2.1 Creating a Destination

A destination must have the following (Figure 2.2):

• A name
• An URL that points to a Dynamicweb installation
• Administrator credentials for the remote Dynamicweb installation

You can verify the URL and credentials by using the Test connection button which will try to communicate with the destination and authenticate using the administrator credentials.

Destination settings are stored as files in the /Files/System/Deployment/Destinations folder.

Once a destination has been configured, you can deploy data from the source to the destination using either the default data configurations or a custom data configuration:

• Go to Settings > Developer > Deployment > Deploy
• Select one of the data configurations, e.g. Content
• Select a Target and the data you want to deploy (Figure 4.1)
• Click compare selected to compare the data – or select and continue to skip the comparison step

Figure 4.1 Selecting data to deploy

The comparison view provides you with an overview of the differences between the source and the destination. Use the filters on top to limit the selection to only a subset of the compared items, e.g. those only on the left (source), right (destination), or which are different from each other. 

For data which exists on both solutions but with differences, you can click the Details button to get an idea of what the differences are.

After comparing, select the data you want to transfer and click Transfer selected – the data will be transferred and you will be presented with a log, hopefully with a positive outcome (Figure 4.3). Old logs can be accessed from Settings > Developer > Deployment > Deployment logs.

On a technical level, the data selected is retrieved from the source, then serialized as a package file before being transferred to the destination, where it is deserialized and the data is restored.

Figure 4.3 The deployment log

A data configuration is a configuration which details what kind of data you want to transfer to a destination. Since all solutions are different no default data configurations are shipped with a solution, but we do have a set of configuration for download which you can then modify to your liking – find them here. They must be placed in the /Files/System/Deployment/DataGroups folder.

At the time of writing this set of data configurations covers:

• Content
• Ecommerce settings
• Users
• Forms for Editors

They are far from comprehensive – and some of the most explicit limitations are:

• Draft & Workflow information is not deployed
• Language layers are deployed as regular websites – don’t select them when transferring areas/websites unless this is what you want
• Permissions, split tests & personalization settings are not deployed

Please note – and I know we’ve stated this numerous times but it’s that important – that if you’re looking to move data such as users or products you should use the data integration framework and not deployment.

When you create a data configuration you can also specify which services caches you want to flush when this configuration is used to deploy data (Figure 5.1).

To create a custom data configuration (Figure 6.1):

• Go to Deployment and open the context menu for a configuration
• Click Edit data group or Add data group
• Click Add data item in the toolbar or click an existing data item to edit it
• Fill in name and id, then select a data item provider and configure any relevant parameters

Figure 6.1 Creating a data configuration

The following standard data item providers are available:

If your source and destination solutions are in separate networks you can export a deployment package on the source, move it to the destination, and then import the deployment package  on the destination solution using a scheduled task.

To export the deployment package:

• Select a data configuration like normal
• Click Select and continue
• Select the data you want to deploy
• Click Export selected
• Specify a folder – defaults to /System/Deployment/Packages – and a name

To import the deployment package:

• Move the deployment package file to a folder on the destination solution file system, e.g. /Files
• Create a new scheduled task using the Deploy data items from upload folder scheduled task add-in
• In the scheduled task add-in settings, point to the folder where you placed the deployment package
• Optionally add an email to notify if an import fails
• Run the scheduled task

Normally the Deployment tool relies on both the source and the destination running the exact same version of Dynamicweb, but it's possible to override this at your own risk. To override this check add the following to your GlobalSettings file: