Copying the Production System to a Test Environment

This topic explains how to copy your Production system (system files and database) to a lower environment such as Test, UAT or Development.

Copying your Production environment to a lower environment is recommended for:

  • Testing an upgrade prior to applying it to your live Production system.
  • Aligning your Development system with your Production prior to commencing design and configuration of system changes intended for the live Production system.

The value of refreshing a lower environment from the Production environment is only realized if the refresh is done with current data. Restoring a database or system files that are months old will not properly reflect the current state of your Production environment.

This topic is not to be confused with Configuration Portability which copies system settings from a Development environment to a Production environment.

Before you begin

Contact Alemba Support for assistance:

Restoring a backup of the Production database to a test environment, if not done properly, can result in accidentally emailing from the test environment and of incoming emails being diverted from Production to Test. To prevent these risks, email data should be removed from the database or the test system should be installed on an isolated environment. Alemba Support can assist you with this.

The configuration, environment, and change processes of every installation site are unique. Alemba Support can review each scenario on a case-by-case basis so that the most effective course of action can be advised.

Overview

These instructions assume a lower environment exists (Test, UAT or Dev) where vFire is installed and is the same version as the Production system.

"Test environment" and "Test database" are used to refer to the lower environment and, for the purposes of these instructions, "Test" is synonymous with UAT, Dev, Pre-Production, etc.

There are 4 steps to refreshing the lower environment:

Task 1 - Prepare the Test environment

If vFire is not already installed on the lower environment, run the vFire install, ensuring the version is the exact same as your Production environment. Refer to the vFire Installation Guide.

Turn off all vFire Services:

  1. Run services.msc
  2. Scroll down to vFire 9 Administrative Service
  3. Stop the service; when prompted select Yes to stop all running vFire services.
  4. Select the vFire 9 Messaging Service and in Properties change the Startup Type to Manual.
  5. Select the vFire 9 Connector Service and in Properties change the Startup Type to Manual.

Task 2 - Restore the Production database to the Test environment

Restoring a backup of the Production database to a test environment, if not done properly, can result in accidentally sending emails from the test environment and of incoming emails being diverted from Production to Test. Alemba recommends that you contact Alemba Support for assistance.

  1. Create a backup of the Production vFire database.
  2. Restore the backup to the Test database.
  3. Ensure that the DB Owner is correct, according to the Test system configuration:
    1. Open the vFire Server Console on the Test environment
    2. Select the system and select Properties
    3. Select the Database tab
    4. Check that the account in DB Login ID is the DB Owner for the Test system's database.
    5. If the account is not the DB Owner, run this query on the Test database to make them the DB Owner: SP_CHANGEDBOWNER '<login_id>'
      Replace <login_id> with the value in the DB Login ID field (example: SP_CHANGEDBOWNER 'AA123')

Task 3 - Copy the vFire Core files from the Production server to the Test server

Copying the vFire files from Production to the lower environment ensures the lower environment is an exact replica of the Production environment. This is especially important when testing an upgrade intended for Production as it ensures there are no surprises during the Production upgrade.

This step is not required if the Test server is a VM snapshot of the Production VM, taken at the same time as the database backup. This step is also not required if the lower environment is being refreshed with the intent of using Config Portability to develop system changes for Production.

The install path for vFire Core may differ depending on a number of factors. The two most common variations are:

  • C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Service Manager
  • C:\Program Files\Alemba\Core

For systems still using the VMware\Service Manager, replace Alemba\Core in the instructions with VMware\Service Manager.

Replace C:\ with the install drive used in your environment.

Steps:

  1. Refresh the root system files
    1. Copy all files (not folders) from the Production vFire server here: C:\Program Files\Alemba\Core
    2. Paste the files to the Test vFire Core server here: C:\Program Files\Alemba\Core
  2. Refresh the Original folder
    1. Copy the Original folder from the Production vFire server here: C:\Program Files\Alemba\Core\Original
    2. Paste the folder into the Test server here: C:\Program Files\Alemba\Core\Original
  3. Copy all folders within the System folder
    1. Copy all folders within the vFire Core system folder (Bin, Config, etc) on the Production vFire server here: C:\Program Files\Alemba\Core\<YourSystemName>
    2. Paste the folders into the system folder on the Test server here: C:\Program Files\Alemba\Core\<YourSystemName>

Task 4 - Start the vFire Services

  1. Run services.msc
  2. Scroll down to vFire 9 Administrative Service
  3. Start the service.
  4. Repeat these steps for the following services:
    • vFire 9 AI Ops Service
    • vFire 9 Config Portability Service
    • vFire 9 Core Service
    • vFire 9 Escalation Service
    • vFire 9 Indexing Service
    • vFire 9 Workflow Service

Do not restart the vFire 9 Messaging Service and do not restart the vFire 9 Connector Service. These services must remain Stopped until all email data is cleared from the database, and until Integration Source details are changed to no longer point to live Production integration systems (as needed). Contact Alemba Support for instructions on how to do this, quoting Knowledge Article 1074.

 

The vFire server files and database are now synchronized and mirror the Production installation.