Creating the staging server before the production server

The staging server can be created either immediately before the production server, for example, a few minutes or hours. The staging server can also be used as a development environment for a longer period, for example days or months, before the production server is created. This is the most common and easiest scenario to set up.

The following high-level steps describe how to set up the staging server before the production server:
  1. Install WebSphere Commerce and create an instance on the staging and production servers. During staging instance creation, ensure that you select the Use Staging Server check box on the Database panel to configure the instance as your staging server. To avoid complexity and performance issues, it is best to have two physically different servers for your staging and production servers.
  2. Install any required maintenance to your staging server so it is at the same maintenance level as your production server.
  3. Install the WebSphere Commerce feature pack.
  4. Enable WebSphere Commerce features, including Foundation, which will create your search server.
  5. On the staging server, create your store and its assets. For example, publish a store, create a catalog and upload product information such as images, update the search index, and create users such as marketing and catalog managers. For more information about publishing stores, see Publishing a store archive.
  6. Test your store to ensure it functions as you expect.
  7. When the store is ready to run on the production server, propagate the data from the staging server to the production server.
    • Publish database data using the stagingprop utility.
    • Publish managed files using a fileprop utility.
    • Publish all other files using the WebSphere Application Server update utility. For more information, see the Updating applications with the console topic.

The stagingcopy command, which copies the production data to the staging server is not required in this scenario, but can be used to synchronize the staging server and the production server if their databases are no long synchronized.