Promote to Master

it is recommended that a sub production system be used for development and uat, with the production system only updated when new configuration has been tested there may be a single sub production system that is used for both dev and uat or two (or more) sub production servers that form a chain of development and testing to facilitate this, the activate installations can be linked and configuration moved from one system to another using an in built mechanism know as promote to master promote to master also facilitates comparing the configuration between the two systems to see what has been changed one server is the local server, the other is the master for 3 servers configuration is always managed using the local server local can compare its configuration with its master master cannot compare its configuration with local local can promote configuration to its master master cannot promote configuration from local local can update its configuration from its master master cannot promote configuration to local enabling local and master servers typically connect via the activate web service and while it is possible to connect directly to the master server’s sql database, connecting via the web service is shown below connection via the activate web service is the preferred option in activate administrator on the local server navigate to tools, sites, master site tab click “connect web service” enter the url of the master server the trailing “/” is required (in version 8, the trailing "/" is not required and should be left off e g https //myact03) click ok, then close restart activate administrator note the site guids of local and master must be different if the local server is a copy of the master, a new guid must be generated for local before proceeding see refresh uat/qa activate server from production operations possible promote to master provides a number of operations that can be used to keep settings and parameters in sync important note to use these operations, advanced mode must be enabled in activate administrator right click on a node or parameter click on all tasks click on master site update from master site overwrites the selected configuration with the corresponding values from the master useful when you want to refresh particular settings from master to ensure that you are working from the current working configuration before starting development to refresh a portion of the sub production system from master without having to rebuild the entire environment from a copy of the master’s database promote to master site overwrites the selected configuration on the master with the corresponding values from local (dev\qa) right click on a node or parameter all tasks master site promote to master site the options displayed vary depending on whether a node or a parameter was selected comparing with master show local changes generates a list in the output window of parameters that have been changed on the local server show master differences compares the selected configuration with the master’s and displays the differences complex parameters, e g , workflows are displayed as xml take ownership sets the owner of parameters and nodes to the local server useful when configuration has been exported to clipboard from an unrelated activate installation, e g a lab vm, and pasted into the local server’s configuration; the owner of the pasted configuration will show as being the lab vm this option lets the local server take ownership recommendations for best practice the promote to master feature is designed to facilitate a release management system in a 3 server system (see diagrams above) changes are developed and unit tested on a dev server promoted to uat for user acceptance testing promoted unchanged from uat to prod for release if issues are discovered during user acceptance testing, fixes are developed on dev and promoted to uat for re testing and promotion to prod while this is the ideal process, changes will be made directly in prod or on uat if required for this reason before starting development use “show master differences” to check that the configuration on uat and dev match prod if necessary, use “update from master site” to update uat from prod, and/or dev from uat, to synchronise the most updated configuration before promoting changes, use “show master differences” to check that changes have not be made on the master server that need to be merged into the configuration being developed notes some configurations should be different between dev, uat and prod, e g , anything that describes the server as in a local master relationship with another server an example may be the exchange server that the 2 different environments are using if you are not sure if differences in configuration should be preserved, contact activate support there is a limit to how much configuration can be promoted, a very large service catalogue may be too big to promote in one operation and will need categories to be promoted individually, or the changes packaged and the package exported to file on the local server, copied to and imported into the master server parameters with the local flag set cannot be promoted, they are designed to be specific to the server they are configured on e g