Copy publication data from one Internet server (production) to another (test)
If you have a production environment and a test (preprod) environment on two different web servers, the data on both servers may gradually diverge. In that case you may want to "reset" the data on the test environment with the data from the production environment. This is done by backing up the database on one server and restoring it on the other server, as well as copying all other files from the production server to the test server.
If there are many and/or large files we recommend that a Zip archive is made for the database file, for image sub folders etc. Copying one file is less time consuming then trying to copy thousand files between computers.
Step-by-step guide
- Use SQL Management Studio to create a backup of the site database (Assert4#sitename per default) on the production server
- Zip the database file and all files that make up the site on the production server (C:\Assert\Data\sitename per default)
- Use SQL Management Studio to delete the site database on the test server
- Delete all files in the site area of the test server (database files and other files)
- Copy the zip-archive to the test server at the same location as where the previous data was located
- Restore the database from the backup file and make sure that the database files end up in the same place as the previous files.
- IMPORTANT Open the Publication storage in Signifikant Manager and ensure that the Remote server for each Remote publication, Offline publication and Offline Synchronization publication is set to a Test server and not to a Production server.
Change publications - risk of wrong data published
IMPORTANT Open the Publication storage in Signifikant Manager and ensure that the Remote server for each Remote publication, Offline publication and Offline Synchronization publication is set to a Test server and not to a Production server.
If publications are run on test server pointing to production server data will be overwritten. Original data will still reside in production server's manager database so there is no risk of data loss.
In stead of deleting the site directory and replacing with the new data, you can also synchronize image and document files in sub folders, to complete the remote publication with files:
- Synchronize Images folder to upload all missing image files
- Synchronize Document folder to upload all missing document files
- Synchronize DocumentSet folder to upload all missing miscellaneous files
Where do I find publication sites?
Default path is: C:\Assert\Data\Sitename