Testing the site on a staging server

Follow this procedure to test your site on a staging server.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have configured the staging server.

Procedure

If your production server is already running, synchronize the staging server with the production server
1. Copy data to the staging database.
2. Copy files to the staging server.
Update and test the site on the staging server.
Publish data to the production database.
Publish managed files to the WebSphere Commerce EAR on the production server.
Copy non-managed files to the production server.
Manually propagate any database schema changes from the staging database to the production database.
Optional: Delete staged data from the STAGLOG table.

Once data is published to the production database, entries in the STAGLOG table are marked as "published". These entries will not be published again. You might want to keep the information in the STAGLOG table for auditing or troubleshooting purposes.
Delete staged data from the STAGLOG table if performance of the stagingprop utility is slow.

What to do next

Repeat steps 1 to 7 each time changes are made to the files or database data on the staging server. These steps can be automated in a script and scheduled to run at off-peak hours to minimize performance impacts to the production server.