Development environment for WEM

Hi all,

Sorry if there are other threads about this topic (couldn't find them using search tools).

We've been looking to make improvements to our development environment (how it is initialised, how it is populated with WEM foundational content - due to multiple developers working on separate development instances, how assets are exported, etc) and wondered if anyone else had worked on these issues and would care to discuss the approach being used.

We would like to use local VM instances so that each developer can work on their changes in isolation and then have developer changes integrated into a central VM, before promotion to upstream environments. Is anyone doing something similar?

Thanks,
James

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William_Thayer

Hello James,

We have a similar setup at one of our clients. You sent two emails on this subject, I'll respond to both here. A little background, we have a production environment that hosts over 100 micro-sites, each site has around 1000 pieces of content related to it totaling around 100k pieces of content and growing. The first thing to establish is a common definition - so we label "upstream" as Dev systems where code originates. We also label "downstream" systems as Prod, and this is where content originates. We have Dev, QA, and Prod environments - and some but not all developers have local instances that they are responsible for. Developers are welcome to grab a snapshot of a Dev system and install it locally - but they are responsible for maintaining it and keeping it running correctly. If they blowup their local, they just have to go back to the snapshot or fix it themselves. I don't recommend wasting resources in managing Developers local instances.

We have a formal release process and identify builds through time.

Code in our process migrates from Dev, to QA for the test team, then of course Prod. Dev is not only meant for code - we also conduct limited unit testing on Dev that the test team coordinates. Then QA, is more focused system testing. When releasing to Prod, our test team is there too to make sure everything is working right especially with what is deemed to be a major release.

Now Content migrates back upstream to QA nightly, then Dev on a quarterly basis. We do this because even though our test team works closely with our end-users, and they are knowledgeable about the business, our test team still does not know everything about what our end-users require with content. Consequently, our Production content may differ slightly or sometimes it might differ significantly in which case a system code change may be appropriate. The point is, Prod content looks and behaves considerably differently then Dev content. We've found that it is very beneficial to use vgnexport/ import from Prod to QA then Dev because it provides our testers and developers the opportunity to test thoroughly with Real content. Also, we've found that no matter how much we "think" we know about how content will live in Prod - there's always exceptions and differing perspectives. So for us, migrating Prod content back to QA and Dev has provided us several benefits of releasing bug free code, communicating more effectively with our end-users, and addressing bugs in Prod more effectively since we have the content and may replicate behavior rapidly.

That's my 2 - cents, hope it helps.

Will Thayer

On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 4:37 AM, eLink Entry: Discussion Group - Web Experience Management <v7webcontentmanagement@elinkkc.opentext.com> wrote:

Development environment for WEM Posted byjames.vulling@afl.com.au (Vulling, James)On 07-02-2013 06:33

Hi all, Sorry if there are other threads about this topic (couldn't find them using search tools). We've been looking to make improvements to our development environment (how it is initialised, how it is populated with WEM foundational content - due to multiple developers working on separate development instances, how assets are exported, etc) and wondered if anyone else had worked on these issues and would care to discuss the approach being used. We would like to use local VM instances so that each developer can work on their changes in isolation and then have developer changes integrated into a central VM, before promotion to upstream environments. Is anyone doing something similar? Thanks,
James
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Will Thayer
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