Getting Started Deployment - Sitefinity - On Premise – Configurations & Setup

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Posted by Community Admin on 02-Dec-2011 00:00

Hi can anyone help with a bit of an overview. How does one deploy from development to live. I've seen stuff about restoring databases from dev to live but think I'm not getting it as I'm thinking that would overwrite live data with test data. Also what about deploying images css masterpages. Do you just FTP it up the live server and then configure the live server to see this content. Cheers, Chris.

Posted by Community Admin on 05-Dec-2011 00:00

Hello Chris,

If you have decided to develop your application locally ( using svn or dev env ) and deploy it to production, I would suggest you to add a staging environment where you can see the result of your development. If there are any problems you will be able to diagnose and fix them without affecting the live site.

Having a development and staging environment you can make changes to your website on the development machine and use a data comparing tool, like the one that is built in VS ( check the attached screenshot ) to commit and upload all changes that are being made to the database to the staging environment. The tool will compare the two databases and change only the data that has been modified on the target database. It is not necessary to use the one that comes with VS if you feel more comfortable using other software.

You can use FTP for any files that need to be uploaded or other type of file comparison tool.

Best wishes,
Victor Velev
the Telerik team

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Posted by Community Admin on 06-Dec-2011 00:00

Dear Chris

This is my simple 20 steps update process. Not realy pro like but works for me :-) Maybe some of it can be helpfull to you as well

Sitefinity Update

Backup Site
1) I create c:\mydomain_1733 (version number of life project)
2) I create c:\mydomain_staging
3) I download www.mydomain.com live content to c:\mydomain
4) I copy c:\mydomain to c:\mydomain_1733
5) I copy c:\mydomain to c:\mydomain_staging

Backup DB
5) I create backup of mydomain_db (db on server)
6) I download mydomain_db.bak
7) I create new DB on server mydomain_db_staging
8) I import the mydomain_db.bak to mydomain_db_staging (on server)

Check if Backup works
9) Change in mydomain_staging the connection string in App_Data\Sitefinity\Configuration\DtaConfig.config to point to the new mydomain_db_staging DB on server.
10) Crate new web on server staging.mydomain.com
11) uplaod mydomain_staging to staging.mydomain.com

Well ,now we should have a copy of our production site on stagin.mydomain.com pointing to mydomain_db_staging. Test if it works. If it does you know you would be able to create a backup from a) mydomain_1733 and mydomain_db.bak

Update Staging
12) Download the new sitefintiy.lic from your account for the new SF version and save it (I save it in c:\mydomain_staging
13) Download the new sitefinity.exe run it and import the c:\mydomain_staging project
14) Run Upgrade (again its actually an update from 1733 to 1855 or so - an upgrade would be from SB to Pro - but that’s again just another thing I try to have changed)
15) Now I delete all stuff on staging.mydomain.com (I don't want any leftovers of old stuff)
16) Build your project (I don't rebuild because some of the dlls always get lost :-()
17) Upload the c:\mydomain_staging to staging.mydomain.com
18) Access staging.mydomain.com - to my knowledge now is the time when mydomain_db_staging gets updated. This takes some time. On shared hosting you might time out and that might be the reason why you could/should do it with your local express DB. I have a VPS and want to make sure it runs in live environment and I don't need to move later with dbo. table owner error stuff (Gabes post)
19) You will be prompted for license file (remember we downloaded it in step 12)

Test if everything works. If yes, We have proven that the update process would actually run and work.
20) As from now I think you have two options. Use staging db and site or update real site same way.
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You might find this blog post by Gabe also helpful http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/gabesumner/posts/11-06-02/how_to_deploy_sitefinity_4_to_shared_hosting.aspx

Regards Markus

Posted by Community Admin on 08-Dec-2011 00:00

Hi Markus Berchtold,

Thank you for sharing your experience with the community! I am sure that many users will find this information useful!

Regards,
Victor Velev
the Telerik team

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