Tools for staging to production | HCL Digital Experience

You can use several tools to stage your server to a production environment.

Portal application archive (PAA)

Each type of artifact can be exported, moved to the target, and imported independently. However, a common archive format does the same tasks. Place all artifacts into the correct location inside the archive file. Copy the PAA file to the target and then use the Solution Installer to deploy it.

For an initial release, the archive file contains all the artifacts that are defined previously. Additional custom components require special handling. The PAA file can be augmented by custom actions that modify the behavior of the Solution Installer as required.

For more information, refer to the section PAA File.

Site Builder

Site Builder administrators can export published Site Builder templates to other servers that run Site Builder. People working on those servers use the Site Builder templates to create websites or to design similar Site Builder templates. Only administrators can export Site Builder templates. Website creators do not see the import and export actions when they use Site Builder.

For more information, refer to the section Exporting Site Builder templates to other servers | HCL Digital Experience.

JCR Import/Export

HCL Web Content Manager provides two methods for exporting and importing web content libraries: an export or import that operates on one library, and an export or import that creates a separate copy of a library. With either method, you can export the contents of a web content library to disk and import this data into another web content server. If you're working with a copy of a library, you can also import that library into the same web content server multiple times, resulting in a new library after each import without affecting previous copies. Exporting and importing libraries can be used to make a backup copy of a web content library and can also be used to move data between servers. However, this function cannot be used to send updates, deletes, and moves. It is only suitable for populating new items.

For more information, refer to the section Exporting and importing web content libraries | HCL Digital Experience

PZN Export/Import & Pznload

HCL Portal Personalization provided script, pznload, to export, publish, and delete Personalization rules on local or remote servers. You can script the delivery of rules and campaigns from staging to production, or the offline publishing between disconnected systems (such as when production servers are secured behind a firewall). You can use this function to quickly revert production servers to an earlier state.

For more information, refer to the section Publishing and deleting personalization rules using a script | HCL Digital Experience

WebDav

A Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) implementation that individual services can use by plugging into, to allow to collaborate on editing and managing files on remote Web servers​.

For more information, refer to the section WebDav.

Web Developer Toolkit

Web Developer Toolkit provides command line tools & dashboard to synchronize (push & pull) between your local file system and DX server.

For more information, refer to the section WebDevToolkitforDX

XML Configuration Interface (XMLAccess)​

The XML configuration interface provides a batch processing interface for portal configuration updates. It allows you to export an entire portal configuration or parts of a configuration, for example specific pages, to an XML file. You can then re-create the exported configuration from such a file on another portal.

For more information, refer to the section The XML configuration interface.

ReleaseBuilder

To generate or stage follow-on releases of HCL Digital Experience portals, configurations, and artifacts need to be moved between systems. ReleaseBuilder enables management of release configurations independent of user configurations.

Release configuration data are exported to XML files that can be imported using the XML configuration interface (XMLAccess)​.

For more information, refer to the section ReleaseBuilder.

ConfigEngine​

The ConfigEngine allows various configuration tasks to be executed that change major DX and WAS configuration. Some configurations can cause conflicts between Portal resources or with other web modules deployed into the WebSphere Application Server. You can check for conflicts by using ConfigEngine validation targets. You cannot access the ConfigEngine remotely. The ConfigEngine pages are documented in the places where it is used, for example, the import pages. A few tasks are exposed via the user interface in the ConfigWiard.

In the Configuration Wizard, you answer questions about the environment that you are configuring. Based on your answers, the wizard prompts you for custom values that are needed to configure your environment. Finally, the wizard generates custom steps and scripts to set up your environment.

For more information, refer to the section Configuration Wizard.

Portal Scripting Interface (wpscript)​

Portal Scripting Interface is used to configure your portal by running scripts from a command line. It provides scripting interface for automated solution deployment and administration of the portal​. You can create scripts to perform portal administrative tasks from a command line.

For details, refer to the Portal Scripting Interface command reference and Portal Scripting Interface Examples.

WAS Scripting Interface (wsadmin)​

WAS scripting interface is used for automated solution deployment and administration of the WebSphere Application Server (WAS)​. It can manage nearly all WAS based artifacts e.g. stop and start server, application​​. You can create scripts to perform administrative tasks from a command line.​ For more information on WebSphere Application Server Configuration Comparison Tool (WCCT) refer: https://support.hcltechsw.com/csm?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0089047

Use of APIs

The HCL Experience API is a set of OpenAPI-compliant REST APIs available for customers deploying HCL Digital Experience 9.5 containers on supported Kubernetes platforms. It supports the integration and management of HCL Digital Experience content and functionality to any digital channel using any front-end development framework. The HCL Experience API includes REST APIs that serve as a wrapper around previously published HCL Digital Experience HTTP-based APIs. You can use APIs to code any updates to Digital Experience.

For more information, refer to the section HCL Experience API.

Syndication

Syndication allows your business users to define the content of your Portal Site through an Authoring system. They can then synchronize the content structure, navigation, and web content documents between the authoring system and the production system. Thus syndication is another way to stage changes from the authoring system to the production system. It defines the source and target of the syndication. The artifacts are moved in the direction from source to target only. Because the business users do the management, the artifacts that can be syndicated are limited to the less critical ones not having the potential to crash the server. Contrary to the PAA process where the release data can be placed on a media that can be moved between the systems, syndication uses an online approach to move changes from one system to another. Thus syndication requires a connection between the systems.

Syndication can be set up between main or virtual portals on different systems or on the same portal system. Because the syndicated pages refer to portlets with the ID of the portlets, an initial staging needs to take place before syndication can be used.

For more information, refer to the section Syndication.

Personalization (Pzn) Publish

After developing personalization rules, you can publish the rules. You can create a publish server and publish either the entire workspace or a set of objects within it​.

For more information, refer to the section Publishing personalization rules.

Container Staging

Container staging is used to move from an existing HCL Portal environment to a containerized Digital Experience environment. it is also used to export/import the source DX server and syndicate the source and target environments​.

For more information, refer to the section Container Staging.