Web farm and DFS

Our current web farm uses DFS to synchronize the files of each web site between the servers in the farm.  Is it possible to use this file synchronization with a Sitefinity site or we will need to place the Sitefinity site in a different location that is not synchronized?

As a follow up question, would it be possible to use the synchronization of DFS but move server specific files, like log files, to a different location outside of the web site folder?

Hello Jon,

When you are in a load balanced environment you need to make sure that the files you have added or updated on one server are also present and updated on the other servers. Since Sitefinity cannot take care of keeping the files on the system in sync you can sync the files manually or use any third-party toll to sync the files.

For the system files which are under App_Data folder a possible option would be to configure the App_Data folder to be on a shared virtual directory as described in this article: http://docs.sitefinity.com/administration-upload-and-physical-location-of-the-application. This way all the nodes will access this folder from a single location and you will not need to sync the changes in files under this folder.

You may refer to the below KB article which describes a use case scenario when it is a good option to have the App_Data folder on a shared location:

http://www.sitefinity.com/developer-network/knowledge-base/details/different-search-results-on-the-different-nodes-in-load-balanced-environment

Regards,
Sabrie Nedzhip
Telerik

Sabrie, I think you misunderstood the question (and maybe I asked it wrong).  We already have a means of synchronizing all the files across our web farm, DFS, and this works well for other sites.  I really had two questions, is there any problem with using DFS as the sync means and what to do with the files under App_Data that seemingly should not be synchronized, namely log files, and maybe temp files, that look to be server specific.

Hi Jon,

I am sorry if I have misunderstood.

Please note that you can use any third-party replication tool including the DFS in order to keep the files on the files system in sync between the environments.

If you would like to exclude any folder from replication, please check the documentation of the replication engine on how you can configure it in order to achieve this. Since this is a third-party engine and it is not related to the Sitefinity functionality, I am afraid I cannot be of much help regarding any detailed steps to achieve this.

I searched over the internet and found the below articles which might be helpful:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758048(v=ws.10).aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753409.aspx
http://forums.iis.net/t/1188819.aspx?DFS+Skipping+a+specific+file+

It is also important to note that all the configurations should be identical on all nodes. the configurations are stored under the App_Data/Sitefinity/Configuration folder and you need to make sure that the content of this folder is identical on each nodes. 

In addition to this, please note that if you store the media content on the files system (not in the database) you also need to make sure that you sync the files under the ~/App_Data/Storage folder. The ~/App_Data/Storage folder is the default folder where Sitefinity stores the binary data for the media content you upload to Sitefinity when the storage provider is set to FileSystem (this is the default file system provider). Sitefinity creates a folder under it with the name of the library and stores the binary data of the images stored under this folder.

If you have any libraries which you have set to use the FileSystem as a storage provider and you have uploaded media content items to this library, you should have folders and files under the Storage folder. You need to make sure that this folder is identical on all environments so that when you upload a media content item (image, document, video) on one node this media item to be available on all nodes.

The same is also valid for the Search folder under ~/App_Data/Sitefinity which should be identical on all servers. Please check the KB article for more details on this: http://www.sitefinity.com/developer-network/knowledge-base/details/different-search-results-on-the-different-nodes-in-load-balanced-environment

Regards,
Sabrie Nedzhip
Telerik

On the configuration files, if they are updated on one server in the farm (in our case the "staging" server where all updated will be made) and then the config files are replicated to the other servers, do those server automatically reload that configuration?  Like if I was to change the smtp server or some other config parameter in the advanced settings, would this automatically get picked up on all servers in the farm after the config files are replicated to them or does the application somehow have to get restarted for those to refresh?

Hi Jon,

After you make changes in the configurations and then replicate these changes to the other nodes in the load balancing, the nodes should be restarted in order for the changes to take effect.

Regards,
Sabrie Nedzhip
Telerik

So, if you were to create a new Module with Module Builder on one node, which updated the config files, and the config files are replicated to the other servers in the farm, would you then have to restart all the nodes just to be able to use that new module?  That would seem rather limiting and unexpected from a content manager's perspective.

Hello,

Please note that creating and activating a new content type in Sitefinity performs a soft restart as it is described in this article: http://docs.sitefinity.com/administration-application-restart. This is needed for the new type to be properly registered and resolved by Sitefinity.

Regards,
Sabrie Nedzhip
Telerik

So, does this soft restart automatically get applied to all nodes in the web farm?  And does it do it based on the UI interaction (like creating a new Module) or does it do it based on a file system watcher when one of the config files changes?