I "inherited" an existing .Net MVC site using Umbraco. I am trying to set up lower environments for code and content promotion using uSync. I have been playing with uSync for some new sites migrating the uSync files from my local to a Dev environment, which seems to be working well for new work, but I am unsure as to the best approach to "add" uSync to an existing Production site.
Do I need to add uSync to my code project via nuget then promote the code as changed, then use back office in each environment to import?
You can put uSync on both environments, depending on how the production is set up (and how you deploy) Nuget is preferred but you could install the package
the main thing when putting it on an existing production site is to ensure that the automatic importing doesn't cause issues. I would ensure that ImportAtStartup is set to false in an uSyncBackOffice.config that you put on the live site - that will stop anything happing automatically.
if I was trying to get an existing dev/production environment in sync I would do a full export on both environments and then do some comparisons of the folders that produces.
in the safety of a development environment, you could put your the exported files from the live site in the dev site what Report tells you is going to happen, or something like WinMerge will give you an idea as to the types of changes that are there.
With non-synced environments, you will find things like properties with slightly different names or descriptions in different orders and uSync will try and fix that, and depending on what is different you might see things get removed/moved around.
On a fully synced system uSync uses the internal Key (Guid) values to match things but as your dev / live are not synced it will fall back to trying to match names and aliases, this can result in the odd miss (especially if they are slightly different, and that can mean things are removed/recreated on the live site.
The thing to be aware of here is if uSync removes a property in a doctype then content will go to (Umbraco will remove the content when the property goes). Having uSync.ContentEdition there to (even if it's just to back things up) will offer some protection as it will put the content back if the property is put somewhere else in the tree.
I would suggest you get a copy of the live site and have a few dry runs before you push a sync to it, mainly because you don't want to lose that content.
Best approach to add uSync to existing Umbraco deployed site.
I "inherited" an existing .Net MVC site using Umbraco. I am trying to set up lower environments for code and content promotion using uSync. I have been playing with uSync for some new sites migrating the uSync files from my local to a Dev environment, which seems to be working well for new work, but I am unsure as to the best approach to "add" uSync to an existing Production site.
Do I need to add uSync to my code project via nuget then promote the code as changed, then use back office in each environment to import?
Hi Glenn,
You can put uSync on both environments, depending on how the production is set up (and how you deploy) Nuget is preferred but you could install the package
the main thing when putting it on an existing production site is to ensure that the automatic importing doesn't cause issues. I would ensure that ImportAtStartup is set to false in an uSyncBackOffice.config that you put on the live site - that will stop anything happing automatically.
if I was trying to get an existing dev/production environment in sync I would do a full export on both environments and then do some comparisons of the folders that produces.
in the safety of a development environment, you could put your the exported files from the live site in the dev site what Report tells you is going to happen, or something like WinMerge will give you an idea as to the types of changes that are there.
With non-synced environments, you will find things like properties with slightly different names or descriptions in different orders and uSync will try and fix that, and depending on what is different you might see things get removed/moved around.
On a fully synced system uSync uses the internal Key (Guid) values to match things but as your dev / live are not synced it will fall back to trying to match names and aliases, this can result in the odd miss (especially if they are slightly different, and that can mean things are removed/recreated on the live site.
The thing to be aware of here is if uSync removes a property in a doctype then content will go to (Umbraco will remove the content when the property goes). Having uSync.ContentEdition there to (even if it's just to back things up) will offer some protection as it will put the content back if the property is put somewhere else in the tree.
I would suggest you get a copy of the live site and have a few dry runs before you push a sync to it, mainly because you don't want to lose that content.
Kevin, thanks for the sound advise. Your guidance saved me a substantial amount of aggravation and pain.
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