Deploy changes in DXP manually

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Prerequisite

You need an Optimizely cloud account to access the self-services for Optimizely DXP. See Create an Optimizely Cloud Account how to get an account.

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Important

Generic accounts like [email protected], or private hotmail-type accounts like [email protected], cannot be used. The self-deployment portal works best with browsers Chrome or Firefox.

Verify site access before deployment

Before starting a deployment, ensure the site in the source environment is running by accessing it in a browser. If the site has IP restrictions preventing you from navigating to it, ask the technical contact for the site to add your IP address to the exclusions list.

If you cannot reach the site, something is probably wrong, and deployment cannot be done. Contact the technical contact for the site to solve the issue, and try again. When you have verified site availability, you can start the deployment.

Deployment steps

This example deploys from the Integration to Preproduction environments, but the procedure is similar when deploying from Preproduction to Production.

Deployment issues

1. Go to the DXP Service management portal on https://paasportal.episerver.net and log in with your account credentials. The Organizations section displays.

   

2. Locate the organization and project you want to deploy changes for, and click on the project name to open it.

3. Click the Hostnames tab to see available hostnames.

   

4. Click the Deployments tab of the Project page; it provides contact information and deployment options. 

   

5. Before deploying, verify that the source site works by viewing the application logs (Troubleshoot-tab > Application Logs). If the site works as expected, click Deploy to start the deployment.

6. Select the applicable options in the dialog box that displays:

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   Note

   If you use Zero downtime mode, the Use maintenance page checkbox is automatically checked. A maintenance page is used only for sites that do not support Zero downtime mode or where it does not make sense such as for scheduler web apps and/or Commerce Manager.

   

   • Zero downtime mode – Select one of the following. See also Smooth Deploy (Zero downtime deployments).
   • Not Applicable – Select this option to prevent using Zero downtime mode.
   • Read Only – (Recommended) The cloned site runs in ReadOnly-mode, so no changes are applied to the temporarily cloned copy. No data loss occurs during the deployment.
   • Read Write – (Data loss likely) The cloned site runs in ReadWrite-mode and allows new data to be written to it.

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   Warning

   Any data written to the cloned database while the deployment is running will be lost at the end of the deployment. The ReadWrite mode increases compatibility with more features and add-ons, but should be used only when data loss is acceptable for the site. (You should make editors aware that no updates should be made to the site during this phase of the deployment.)

   • Use maintenance page – If the deployment includes database schema updates or changes to content types, select to display a maintenance page while the site is offline.
   • Include Blobs & DB – If it is a first-time deployment to the target environment, select to copy these items over. Existing BLOBS and database are overwritten if you select the Include Blobs & DB option. If this option is not selected, only code will be copied.
   • Select applications –. If you have multiple web applications, you can select which ones to deploy.

7. Click Start Now. A progress bar displays the progress of the deployment. When the first part of the deployment is done, a confirmation message displays in the portal. 

   • Click View output log to see deployment step details. See Deployment process for information about the procedure.
   • You can click Cancel to stop the deployment and roll back the changes if needed.

   

8. Click the Preview... link to verify that the sites in the slot are working as expected.

   

   An email is also sent to the technical contact for the target site, with links to the slot URLs that you can use for site verification.

   

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   Warning

   DO NOT continue with the deployment if you cannot properly verify a site in a slot.

   If there is a problem, you can fix the Integration environment and deploy it to Preproduction again, but the Use maintenance page or Include Blobs & DB options are unavailable. You cannot re-select the source applications; it auto-selects them from the previous deployment.

   

9. When verifying the sites in the previous step, click Complete to finalize the deployment. A progress bar displays, and the site in the slot is swapped into the Preproduction environment.

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   Note

   Alternatively, if the deployment did not succeed, click Reset to revert the changes. The Preproduction environment is reverted to its initial state if a site did not work as expected in the first deployment part. Click Reset in the confirmation dialog box, to complete the reset, and go to the troubleshooting section below to solve the issues.

   

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   Note

   If you selected Use maintenance page, you can roll back the database and validate the Reset progress.

   

10. If you selected Validate before swap, click Preview to verify that the sites are working as expected after resetting, then click Complete reset to finalize the reset progress. 

11. When completed, the project page displays the Deploy option again. You can click the information icon next to the environment name to see when the latest deployment was completed.

12. If the deployment succeeds, verify that the preproduction environment works as expected.

Troubleshoot deployments

Notifications may display at the top of the page sent by the system administrator. Also, support information is provided if you have issues during deployment.

An error message displays on the Project page if an unsuccessful deployment occurs.

Click error log for detailed information to see a summary of the deployment issues.

If the information cannot identify the issues, click View Job Log to open the Job output view. This contains detailed deployment information, as described in the following section.

Deployment job log output

This view provides information about the sites and environments involved in the deployment. You can also find exceptions, error messages, warnings, and deployment output steps useful when troubleshooting deployment issues.

Click Get Detailed Log to receive the same information in an email. This is useful if you want to share the information with someone without access to the portal.

Log Stream

The Log Stream option lets you view output from Optimizely log files to help troubleshoot deployment errors. This option requires enabling diagnostics logging to a BLOB storage, as described in the article Enable diagnostics logging for Web Apps in Azure App Service.

Click Open Log Stream Window to access the log stream. You can hook on the Optimizely logs to monitor the live log stream from site instances. Click Pause or Resume to stop or continue streaming log information. Click Clear to remove the recent log output.

Related blog post: Setting up Continuous Integration with Azure DevOps and Episerver DXC Service (Optimizely DXP) by Stephan Lonntorp