Table of Contents
All pages for the entire site are "built" (or re-built) upon running a build. A build is run whenever changes (add, modify, delete) have taken place to the site. Only through a build can you see the results of site edits; these will be seen only in the Development environment website. When ready, this development version of the site is then "deployed" to Staging, and, upon approval, further deployed out to Production. (Please note: as the website launches (Dec. 2002), to begin, with only two environments instead of three, there is no "staging" environment, arguably. Deployment is from Development to Production, via "copy.")
Note: "deployment" to Production involves a "copy" or use of "FTP" to move the site - deployment to Production is not implemented by a "build". Still to be determined if the (forthcoming) Staging environment will be a true "build" environment, or only one that is "deployed" to from Development via "copy" or FTP. Advantage to having Staging a true "build" environment of its own is that it frees up Development for more exploratory work and development. Disadvantage is that the management of files from Development to Staging must be handled more carefully. Recommended to pursue making Staging its own "build" environment.
See note below re: near-future plans to introduce a new production environment (Rackspace.com), and thereby a true "staging" environment as well.
Complete your changes to website content (add, modify, delete), be they text content files, other text website files (e.g. CSS, Javascript, etc.), or graphics.
Make necessary changes to website \mlnmdev\util\buildlist.xml, if required.
If neccessary, copy modified files from local C:\ drive up to development server (using Windows Explorer to mapped drive).
![[Tip]](images/tip.png)
Tip Some edits you may prefer to do on your local drive, though all could be accomplished working directly off the development server. Be sure to carefully manage version control amongst the various copies of your work.
Run Start | Programs | Accessories | Communications | Remote Desktop Connection, and login with authorized account to the development environment server.
![[Note]](images/note.png)
Note TODO: Need to insert name and/or IP of server here!
On remote machine, run Start | Command Prompt and cd util {ENTER}, to get to c:\mlnmdev\util\. Type dir {ENTER} to see the available *.bat batch files.
To see the build output shown to screen (recommended) (as opposed to invisibly written to log), run mlnmdev-dev.bat (TODO: double-check name of .bat file).
Note The command prompt window Property for "Command History" "Buffer Size" and "Number of Buffers" has been set very high, to permit scrolling back to see most if not all of the screen output. But writing to log is the guaranteed way to see all console output (see below).
Tip To have the build output written to a log file (useful for debugging if something goes wrong), run mlnmdev-log.bat. (Writes to build_log/build_log.txt.)
Currently, build run time is approximately fifty-five (55) seconds.
Check resulting website ( http://stage.mpi.com:8080).
When satisfied, deploy new website to production. On the "Remote" Desktop, click open the LIVE SITE folder and then click the mlnmdev-production_LIVE_SITE.bat icon to kick off the very brief task of copying the development website to the production website.
Currently, deploy run time (using "copy" from same machine) is approximately three (3) seconds. Needless to say, this will be much longer when deploying using FTP to the real production environment!
Check resulting website ( http://www.millennium.com), where everything should be precisely as it was on the development environment.
| Note |
|---|---|
The production environment will soon be migrating to Rackspace.com. This will free up the current "production" environment (hosted on Millennium server) to become the true "staging" environment. This in turn will permit the current "staging" environment to become a true "development" environment, which should prove more useful to website staff.
Build procedures will vary only a little, with the introduction of this change. An additional batch file should be created, and the current /mlnmdev/util/build.xml file will need to be edited to point to Rackspace.com for FTP deployment of files. (Examples can be found in the build.xml file for FTP deployment.) | |