How to set up staging

The procedure of defining staging were presented by using the Staging MMC Console (UI way)

a) Start\All Programs\Microsoft Commerce Server 2007\Commerce Server Staging

b) Create a new Project with a Wizard (you have to have admin privileges to do that)

c) Enter name of staging project

d) Choose what is the subject of staging: site stuff (would pack all the web site related pages, controls etc) or business data (product catalogues, marketing data)

CSS does not support staging of the following data:

• Inventory data or inventory schema changes.
• Profiles or profile schema changes.
• Direct mailer jobs, lists, or configuration.
• Profile encryption keys.
• SSL certificates.

e) Project source is very confusing step for me because it mentions some temporary storage location in description. The path you would typically enter here is the path to the folder containing your CS Site which is in case of starter site by default, this is C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\StarterSite

f) Choosing a staging destination from a list of predefined destination or we have to create a new on

g) There are 3 types of destination: remote server, route and local server

End point server defines any remote server base storage destination

A route in CSS defines one or more destination servers during the site deployment. e.g. if you would like to publish your changes to multiple predefined location route is the solution. Routes are especially useful when you use the same source and destination servers for multiple staging projects.

Important note: If you create a route, you must manually create it on every server specified in the route

To store data on local server just enter an existing local path

h) The project schedule page is the page where we can schedule recursive staging occurrence and we can select automatic deployment of Content upon the change (something similar to file watch observing the file changes)

e) The recursive options provided by scheduler of CS2007 are based on Windows scheduler engine with a bunch of self explanatory options

f) Finally the last step includes summary screen where we need only to press Finnish button

How to use created staging project

It is easy. Just right click the newly created project and pick the run option

Concept of staging in Commerce Server 2007 supports Rollback activity, but is important to notice here that the rollback would be applied only on Content (site items: pages etc) and not on Business Data (catalogue data and marketing where there is no possibility of roll back once data are been created on destination

Status

To verify the complete status of the staging take a look at Status field on the same panel, which would show Complete once staging would be completed

Reports

To get more detail report about staging process chose one of the project reports in the left panel

Properties

If you would right click the project name on the right panel and pick properties

you would be presented with a property screen where you can set up various things regarding commerce server including the:

Filter setting

where you can define which files (or folders)  you want to exclude/include from staging

Scripts

where you can define which VBScript files should be executed before and after the certain staging events

Troubleshooting staging

Staging component is not been install by default.

You have to check Staging component during the installation process. If you already finished installation rerun the installation process again.

Check that Commerce Server Staging windows service is started after.

Running the staging installation produces
"The commerce server service connection point failed to install. Would you like to continue?"

If you happened to have next error message presented during the installation:

The commerce server service connection point failed to install. Would you like to continue?

Solution: Click on Yes

(The connection point is not used by anything within Commerce Server. It's only purpose in life is to identify a computer within AD has having Commerce Server installed.)

Running the CSConfig produces
"ASP is not enabled on this web server ..."

If you decide to rerun the CSConfig.exe file (located by default in c:\Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2007)  with a /F (force) switch you could see next error screen 

Obviously the reason is that on your IIS server ASP 3.0 extensions are not allowed and CSS uses some VBScript based packaging functions so it can not operates without it

Solution is:

a) Start\Run\inetmgr

b) Click Web Services extension in the left panel

c) Highlight Active Server Pages in right panel

d) Click on Allow button

Trying to save staging project produces event id 6102 error "Access Denied"

Resolution:

Rerun the Commerce server configuration tool which would set appropriate account to be used for staging service.

If the Commerce Server would be installed in D:\CS2007 path running the configuration tool would be

Start=>Run=>D:\CS2007\CSConfig.exe /f

Trying to see some of Staging Event Reports return 404  Page not found

If you are seeing this

To resolve this issue rerun the CS configuration and check the creation of virtual folders

If the Commerce Server would be installed in D:\CS2007 path running the configuration tool would be

Start=>Run=>D:\CS2007\CSConfig.exe /f

Check the "Create an IIS Virtual Root for Staging (used to generate reports" option