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HCL Digital Experience 9.5 [Legacy content]
Staging to production
During portal solution development, the solution is initially developed, tested, and refined on one server or a limited number of servers. The solution is deployed later on live systems, referred to as the production environment. The process of moving the solution from the development environment to the production environment is called staging.
Manual staging to production process
HCL Digital Experience provides two solutions through staging to production; manual and automated. For more information about the automated solution, see Staging to production. The following sections guide you through the manual solution for a stand-alone server. Two stand-alone servers are used to represent a development and production environment, which corresponds to the host name used in the examples.
Validating the environment
Validate the portal artifacts on the target (production) environment and set up the syndication relationship. This process is a manual validation of the environment. An automated multiple user test on both environments helps find any incomplete configuration steps.

HCL Digital Experience 9.5 [Legacy content]
- Overview
  HCL Digital Experience provides a single access point to web content and applications, while it delivers differentiated, personalized experiences for each user across multiple touchpoints, such as web, mobile, hybrid mobile/web applications, and more.
- Supported migration paths
  Migration is supported between equivalent HCL Digital Experience offerings.
- Supported installation and upgrade paths
  Installation and upgrade is supported between equivalent HCL Digital Experience offerings.
- Getting the software
  New and existing users need to register at the HCL Software License Portal and download their entitled HCL Digital Experience package(s).
- Creating your website
  Review the following topics to understand how to create your website using the latest HCL Digital Experience.
- Installing HCL Digital Experience
  Review the planning information on HCL Digital Experience, then select your operating system and installation pattern that most reflects your business needs.
- Configuring
  Run the following tasks after you install and deploy HCL Digital Experience. They address tasks that are typically run one time and have a global effect. Some configuration changes are made more frequently or do not have a global effect. These tasks are addressed in the Administering section.
- Backup and restore
  Backup and recovery of data files and databases is an essential operation for any business system, particularly for data and applications that run in production environments. Create and follow a plan for backing up and recovering data on all tiers of your HCL Digital Experience deployment. IBM Installation Manager must also be included in backup and recovery planning. If you back up the HCL Portal file structure and then install a fix pack, your HCL Digital Experience and IBM Installation Manager become out of sync after you restore the HCL Portal file system. This condition is not recoverable.
- Migrating
  Successful migration requires significant planning and preparation, understanding the tools that are involved, and careful execution of the appropriate steps in the order provided.
- Integrating
  Integrate HCL Digital Experience with software such as HCL Sametime to enable your users to collaborate more easily. You can also use the unified task list portlet to integrate HCL with your backend business process software, such as IBM Process Server.
- Administering
  Use the administration tools that are provided with the HCL Digital Experience to do various day-to-day administration tasks.
- Securing
  Security tasks include setting up property extension databases and custom user repositories, configuring and activating SSL, and configuring authentication. In addition, tasks such as activating Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and NIST SP800-131a security modules and configuring external security managers such as Security Access Manager might be required to secure your portal environment.
- Monitoring
  HCL Portal includes tools and features to help you monitor the portal site.
- Setting up a website
  Setting up a website includes, creating pages, adding navigation, setting up search, and adding content to the site. Themes are used to customize the portal's look-and-feel. Out-of-the-box templates and the site wizard can help you set up your portal site faster. You can add wikis and blogs to your site and let users tag and rate content on your site.
- Staging to production
  During portal solution development, the solution is initially developed, tested, and refined on one server or a limited number of servers. The solution is deployed later on live systems, referred to as the production environment. The process of moving the solution from the development environment to the production environment is called staging.
  - Overview of staging to production
    Review the topics in the overview section to understand all the requirements to successfully stage your production environment.
  - Creating and deploying the initial release
    Build the initial Portal Application Archive (PAA) file, prepare the servers for the deployment, and then deploy the initial release to your production servers.
  - Creating and deploying a differential release
    Create a differential release of your existing Portal Application Archive (PAA) file. Then, deploy your changes to your production servers. Use Syndication to move HCL Web Content Manager content to your production servers.
  - Parameters to customize the release
    You can use these parameters to customize the build-initial-release-paa task when you are creating the initial or differential release.
  - Updates with syndication
    After setting up your initial staging and production servers and deploying the initial release, you can use the syndication feature of HCL Web Content Manager to update content in web content libraries. If managed pages are enabled, syndication also ensures that all required page artifacts are transferred along with the content.
  - Staging and external security managers
    Staging to production where external security managers (ESM) are used is complex and needs special consideration. The following section discusses considerations of the impact of external security managers on the staging process. External security managers can be used to externalize authentication and authorization decisions from the portal. Externalization of authentication decisions to an external security manager has no impact on the staging to production functionality. Management of authorizations by an external security manager has an impact on the staging to production scenario. Using an external security manager for authorization decisions requires that the same external security manager is used to manage authentication to the portal.
  - Manual staging to production process
    HCL Digital Experience provides two solutions through staging to production; manual and automated. For more information about the automated solution, see Staging to production. The following sections guide you through the manual solution for a stand-alone server. Two stand-alone servers are used to represent a development and production environment, which corresponds to the host name used in the examples.
    - Copying the JCR database
      Copy the JCR database that is used on the source environment with the following steps.
    - Exporting from source
      Export the portal artifacts on the source environment, with XMLAccess and sample scripts.
    - Using copy of source JCR database domain
      Use the copied JCR database for the target production environment. This process involves modifying the database properties, validating the connection, and connecting to the copied database.
    - Importing in target
      Import the base release and remaining portal artifacts on the target. This process includes emptying the portal before you import the source pages, portlets, and other artifacts.
    - Validating the environment
      Validate the portal artifacts on the target (production) environment and set up the syndication relationship. This process is a manual validation of the environment. An automated multiple user test on both environments helps find any incomplete configuration steps.
- Developing
  This section includes developer documentation on extending applications and development assets for HCL Portal and HCL Web Content Manager.
- Docker and Containerization
  Find topic information about Docker and Containerization for HCL Digital Experience.
- Practitioner Studio
  Practitioner Studio is a newly designed user experience for HCL Digital Experience. Please see the following pages to understand how the new navigation is organized.
- HCL Experience API
  This shows developers how to provision, configure, and use the HCL Experience API with the HCL Digital Experience 9.5 platform.
- HCL Content Composer
  The HCL Content Composer delivers simplified processes for creating and managing Digital Experience site content.
- HCL Digital Asset Management
  HCL Digital Asset Management (DAM) adds a central platform to store and include rich media assets in Digital Experience site content to present engaging, consistently branded experiences across digital channels.
- The Woodburn Studio demo site
  The Woodburn Studio is a website that demonstrates the use of some of the popular HCL Digital Experience features.
- Reference
  View information that can help you use our product documentation including terms of use, trademarks, and more.

Validating the environment | HCL Digital Experience

Validate the portal artifacts on the target (production) environment and set up the syndication relationship. This process is a manual validation of the environment. An automated multiple user test on both environments helps find any incomplete configuration steps.

Procedure

Start portal, if not started. /opt/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/bin/startServer.sh HCL Portal and HCL Web Content Manager.
While you start the HCL Portal server, check the log file /opt/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/PortalServer/log/SystemOut.log for error or missing artifacts.
Access the target portal URL http://cntserv_exmp.com:10039/wps/portal in the browser.
Log in with wpsadmin/wpsadmin.
After you log in, go through portal, click the Home Pages, Administration, and Custom Pages.
While you are logged in, setup syndication for the appropriate libraries between the source and the target system.
Close the browser.

What to do next

Now that the production environment is staged, portal syndication feature must be used to update content in web content libraries. If managed pages is enabled, syndication also ensures that all required page artifacts are transferred along with the content.