Table of Contents
Episode Summary
Join Ross Tenaglia, Zach Malloch, and Bret Alarcon as they discuss the process of refreshing your Demo Environment. They discuss the importance of having an update to date demo and the steps necessary to refresh it.
Video
Transcript
Zach Malloch 0:09
Well, I certainly hope everybody has their friends together. I know that we do. I'm joined today by Ross Tenaglia and Bret Alarcon. My first thing, Ross, I have to apologize. I misspelled your name on the invites. And today's session, can you please forgive me?
Ross Tenaglia 0:25
Oh, that's fine. I'm used to it.
Zach Malloch 0:27
Alright, fine. Thank you very much. Well, and thank you for joining us today to discuss the topic, a very important one of copying the live database over to the Demo database environment. So can you give us a little bit of background about what this is?
Ross Tenaglia 0:43
Yeah, sure. It's a pretty short and sweet process. But um, you know, it's definitely something that I, I generally Field a lot of these cases. So, you know, probably a good amount of people on the RecChat have worked with me on doing this in the past, or this is news to them. But basically, like the Demo is a process that you do to move over the database from the live environment, to a Demo environment, so that whatever they're working on, or just simply for training, it's in a safe sandbox, where you're not going to mess around with charging credit cards or anything like that. So people can learn test out new ideas, and just have it there for any other reasons you can possibly think of.
Zach Malloch 1:35
Yeah, I think, primarily / especially the onboarding for sure, like getting new people up and running and having the database, the training database, the Demo database refresh. So it has all the accurate information, you're not running into date range issues, because it's from last spring or whatever. Yeah, a lot of good uses to refreshing the database.
Ross Tenaglia 1:56
yeah, exactly.
Zach Malloch 1:56
So, I think you're gonna walk us through the process. Right, Ross?
Ross Tenaglia 1:59
Yeah, let me pull up the correct Screen here which Screen
Zach Malloch 2:03
while you're doing that, I realized I was completely negligent and didn't tell people that we can use the q&a portion down at the bottom to ask any questions that helps us keep track of everything and make sure that we answered all of those. I saw Bret giving me the devil eyes, because I didn't mention that yet.
Ross Tenaglia 2:21
Well, I will send up my Screen here. Zach, can you see my desktop here?
Zach Malloch 2:31
Not yet. Have you confirmed that share?
Ross Tenaglia 2:39
Screen Share? Is it working now?
Zach Malloch 2:45
Alright, Now I can see RecTrac?
Ross Tenaglia 2:47
Okay, perfect. All right. So here's my browser, my live, my Demo. And you can kind of see, this is what the Demo looks like. It has a very overt color. But now we come to a situation where it's out of date and I want to move over my live database that has all the new staff, or new items in there to play around in the Demo database. So the first thing I always do is I always open up OpenEdge Explorer on your server. There'll be an icon a lot of times it'll be pinned to your desktop or your your start menu or you can always just type in localhost:9094.
Zach Malloch 3:37
And actually, that's a that's a good point, just to kind of call out is that this step is a server side process you do on your RecTrac server to do this.
Ross Tenaglia 3:46
yes, that is correct. And then once you're in open explorer, I was already logged in, but the Username generally is admin|admin (all lowercase). So you should have that on file or remember how to use it. But yes, whenever I do the lead to Demo, I always make sure I shut everything off that runs on the Demo. It's not a requirement. But I've just run into personal instances where the live Demo process has a struggle to shut everything down. Either you're dealing with permission issues, or there's something just actively running in there that maybe holding it back. And shutting things down are easy enough. You can see you got checkboxes here. So you can multi select and basically all you got to do is check everything that has the word Demo nice and easy. So event Demo, VIC Demo under app servers. Scroll all the way down to your web speed client Demo web Demo. Click those. And then you have a nice little stop Button shuts them down, and then your actual database, you can do the same thing. Shut it down. And basically just double check everything event, VIC client web. And just as a general concept with OpenEdge, Explorer and Progress, you got to shut down the app servers and web speeds first, and then you can do the database. Because if those are still communicating to the database, the database won't be able to shut off. And it was able to shut off. So no problem. So now the Demo database is completely offline. And then we can pull up the DB utility tools. So that will a lot of times when we set up your guys servers, for the first time, we pin those on whatever user we happen to use. Or you can always search for it, I have mine pinned, it will also be under VSI3, your DB utility, so many ways to find it. But I always recommend pinning it just to make your life easy. And then you have utilities. So to do lead to Demo, it's the refresh database portion here. So you select that. And then you move on to here. So there's two options, there's on demand and from backup. I always personally recommend backup. Ideally, everyone should be running a backup cycle that is at least once a day, if you may have it where it runs, you know, twice a day, once in the morning, once midday, whatever your cycle is, on demand, makes a backup of the running live database and then moves the backup over to Demo. So if you're doing this during you know, high business hours, it may impact server performance. So that's why I always recommend a backup unless, for whatever reason, if it's yesterday's backup, but they have stuff from today that they want to move over, that could be the business case, but you do just have to keep those considerations in mind. The live Demo process can slow things down if you do it on demand compared to backup.
Zach Malloch 7:25
And that's also I guess, maybe a good point to make here is that the backup file we're talking about here is a full image. It's everything in your life database, as of the time that that backup was taken. So as long as like if you're going in there and to investigate a problem transaction, or maybe there was an activity that was built that had rules set up the wrong or in a way that you wanted to test it, if if it's in the live database in that problem state and you want to get it to the Demo side, you need to make sure that you're pulling it back up from the time that that would have existed in that from before that happened. And then Ross's mentioned about the on demand is it'll actually make a backup at the time. But then that's going to add a lot of time to how long this process takes. And as he mentioned, server resources to do that.
Ross Tenaglia 8:12
Yes. So those are two considerations. But if you're just doing it, because the databases, the Demo database is old, you know, you put stuff in there, and you just need to get it over for training from backup is probably just always the better option. So when you're in here, you got to select a source file our structure file here, it will automatically bring you to this location. And that is a fine location, if you're doing on demand, but if you do backup, I always backup backup to the VSI3 folder, and then you will have this backup folder. So you'll see it there. Now, I will say most customers and their backup location is within the VSI3 folder that everything's installed under. But if you happen to have a different location that you dropped these backup files, you just have to be aware of it and browse out to it.
Zach Malloch 9:22
And the way to get that awareness would be to check out the backup Profile in RecTrac. Right, that's where you can see what path you're pointing to.
Ross Tenaglia 9:29
Yep, that'd be correct. Or you can just do a little bit of snooping around if you're, you have a relative idea that you know, it's in a different location. But you always see the the st files have a they always look like this. And there's a date stamp my last backup I ran on the 23rd but you may have multiple ones. So I'm gonna pick this so you can see the next Screen will make a little bit more sense. You can always see that there is a. st file and a .VSI backup file, you always want to pick the corresponding ones. So this backup file corresponds to this structure file. So if you're picking this structure file, you want to pick the same date stamp to the backup file.
Zach Malloch 10:18
And we did just get a quick question. Ross, can you talk about the database utilities how you found that again, real quick.
Ross Tenaglia 10:27
So all you have to do is just go to your start menu. And it will be under VSI3 and DB utilities right here. Or you can always search for it like a Window search, just Type in dB underscore and eventually pulled up. And then it's always recommended. Make life easy, just pin it. And I'll be there.
Zach Malloch 10:54
Perfect, thank you.
Ross Tenaglia 10:59
So I will pick this file here and move on to the next Screen. So this don't change ever. Just leave it as is, it will always put in the correct information. And leave it as such, because doing anything more you get, you will get dangerous. So we'll just browse past that one. So here's the last Screen before you move to the actual processing. Initialize Demo, you always want to make sure you set leave as Yes, just don't touch it. The only time you would set it as no would be a circumstance that you're working with someone at Vermont systems for a very unique situation that we won't get into. But leave it as initialize as Yes, that's what makes it that what is it purple pink combination color it in activates all your scheduled events. it deactivates all credit card processing. So you could see why that's a very important thing to happen.
Zach Malloch 12:06
Yeah, and we've had some unfortunate situations where people didn't initialize and they were testing in the Demo database and actually processing credit cards and the like. And that's that's no fun for anybody.
Ross Tenaglia 12:17
Yes, you schedule installment billing and things of that nature, yeah, big thing. Then there's another group of toggles here that pretty much you would always leave as is. The set RecTrac passwords to Demo, this is exactly what it says it will do. It will set them all to be Demo. So your Username could be ABC and you have your own password. This Toggle will make it so that everyone's password is Demo. And just to make life easy. You can uncheck it if you want for your own institutional reasons. But vast majority leave it on as Demo. And then the other ones are, I don't think I've ever seen anyone make changes to these. And like I said, there are some situations where they're very unique circumstances why you would, but you would be on with us because we're dealing with a very different circumstance. But for 99.9% of all business practices, you would leave it as this.
Zach Malloch 13:37
And we did get another question, but we'll come back to that. Because I think that after we because this is basically the the last step before we actually get into processing, right?
Ross Tenaglia 13:46
Yep, this is the last step. So you hit next, this is all just final reminders. And then you hit process. So depending on the size of your database, will entirely determine how long this will take as well as your, your actual server drive situation. Like if you have SSDs versus regular hard drives, depending on your raid. There's a lot of factors. You know, I've seen 50 Gig databases, I've seen some take only a couple minutes. I've seen some take ours same size, but you have different server environments. So those will play a huge role on how fast this takes along with your traditional resources.
Zach Malloch 14:37
So the the second question that came up was how do you find the backup file? So I was wondering if you could show us the backup Profile in RecTrac. So that if anybody is curious, you can this is a guarantee show you exactly where that backup file is being created, or at least where you should go to to look for it.
Ross Tenaglia 14:59
Yep, so If you're in RecTrac, and you don't happen to have Profile Management favorited, you can always go in here and search right for it. So it's a nice way. And then you have your backup Profile right here.
Zach Malloch 15:19
You really should only have most people only have one in their database. So it should be pretty easy.
Ross Tenaglia 15:24
There's absolutely no reason to have more than one. And then it tells you where your backup folder is. That's where they all go.
Zach Malloch 15:35
Now, we did have a quick question. So, David, notice that there was an option that said create imp file?
Ross Tenaglia 15:42
Yes, we don't utilize that Toggle anymore. I believe that's more utility that is used for our hosted enterprise. Beyond that for on premise customers, I don't think it has serves any purpose.
Zach Malloch 16:02
And Kristen has a question. So they keep the receipts outside of the database. Does the utility or is there an option in the utility to set the receipts to a Demo location right now? They're saying if they forget to change location and static parameters, the receipts get overwritten?
Ross Tenaglia 16:18
That is actually a really good question. I can't say I know if it does. But that is probably something that we would want to write up a task on, because I know that feature to store outside of database was developed at a later point. And it is entirely possible that the live to Demo initialize program doesn't account for that. So that is certainly a really good point. And let me write that down. Because I think that's probably going to, or is that can you write that down? Because that would be some sort of change, that would be unnecessary... But getting back to the live to Demo, you can see that it is completed. So I've a pretty small database. So it was gonna be a quick one. So I hit Next. And I'm just going to hang here for a second. And go back to OpenEdge Explorer here and hit this refresh, you'll see that the Demo database is running. So the live Demo process automatically restarts the database, but doesn't restart the app servers and web speeds. So that's why I always keep it present. Then you just go down the list of your event and VIC and your web speeds here. Turn them on, and we'll take a second and they'll turnover. Or if you're impatient like me, I just hit Refresh because sometimes the Refresh is faster. And they're all running. So now, I'll refresh this and the Demo database is here. So you log in and use Demo as your password. And that's that's the process. So I do encounter a follow up. circumstance that happens a lot. This part is covered in our live Demo topic doc that I'm sure Zach will have accompany the end of this rec chat. But sometimes depending on your settings, you do a live Demo and you get a 502 error or something about a gateway or you get stuck on the beginning Screen. But it says loading resources. And that is often be because there isn't a interface parameter for Demo. So that's why I always leave this up just in case you do encounter that. And then you can set it to run another utility. And then you would use the Update interface parameter. So this, again, is all outlined. But sometimes it's nice to kind of see it in action, what it looks like. And then the most confusing part is just making really the changes here. So this refers it defaults to your live connection information. So you're doing this for Your Demo. So it's important to change it. So works for your Demo. And those changes, often referred to as RecTracDemo_1. Demo. And then right after client Type in Demo. Now, whatever your beginning portion of the base h ref, if you have an HTTPS connection, you should hopefully know that or track down someone that does. And then you would just copy that portion of it. And put it in here. Because interface parameters will automatically assume the server name and port of the non secure HTTP connection, I don't have an SSL, so mine is still HTTP. But if you're HTTPS, you want to make sure you put that in there. And then the second half right here, generally stays the same. And then you select the Demo database file. Again, something to just be very mindful of it will always default to live backup one folder, go to Demo, and select the Demo entity and you'll see that right there. And then process. That's it. So if you happen to get that interface parameter error, or that 502 Gateway error, just go ahead and do that. And then you'll be able to launch the Demo. No problem.
Bret Alarcon 21:36
Here. So you got a couple of questions popping in. Do you got time to answer these right now? All right. First question is, we keep receipts outside of the database. Does
Ross Tenaglia 21:47
we've already answered that with Zack, So that yeah, that is...
Zach Malloch 21:54
Yeah, I should have cleared that. Sorry about that.
Bret Alarcon 21:56
Okay, we have a centralized backup location for other DB's and I was wondering if we can use the copy backup folder to copy the files to it.
Ross Tenaglia 22:07
All right, little off topic. But it depends. If it is a network drive, where it's a map drive, and it requires certain permissions to actually write to it, then that changes a lot of things that ideally don't want to get into too much. But it would involve changing the service user for admin service to a domain admin account with general rights to wherever it needs to go as well as full rights to the RecTrac server. And ideally, to avoid forgetting and having your system crashed, because you forgot, you would ideally want to set that password to not expire, because if it expires, RecTrac will not start up. And if no one remembers that and you're going to be spending a lot of time figuring out what's going on. If the drive is as seen to the server as a local drive, which it could also be a NAS, then it's kind of a moot point because it's local, as it sees it. Although the physical drive is a completely different environment. It's a loaded question, that's for sure.
Bret Alarcon 23:34
So you can't have schedule can't have a scheduled On Prem Live to Demo like you could in 10.3?
Ross Tenaglia 23:42
Ah, well, I don't know of anyone doing it in 3.1. And I don't think that was something that we transitioned over. I don't have I don't have a direct answer on it. But I feel like we don't do that because it acts... It did create too many problems for what it was worth and the business case rationale swayed heavily in the removal of it. But again, I don't really have too much information because I don't think I know anyone that that has asked it or asked in in a significant time.
Zach Malloch 24:23
I remember back in my install days, we created a batch file that I tried it with like three different customers and it worked for one person. So I think that you're you're accurate Ross that it was a problematic thing to try to automate.
Ross Tenaglia 24:37
Yeah, even in 10.3, and then also with the Initialize process. It's done completely different than in 10.3, and doing a batch file. Only the utility can call that procedure. So yeah, I think That's another reason there's a laundry list of reasons. I just don't personally have them all.
Bret Alarcon 25:08
That's it for questions unless someone else has any questions out there.
Zach Malloch 25:16
So I'm actually writing up the issue that Kristin brought up right now. So we will have that released getting into the enhancement flow before too long. I can't promise when it will come out. But we are aware of it.
Ross Tenaglia 25:31
And definitely Thank you, Kristen, for bringing that up. I can definitely see how it is a very important thing.
Zach Malloch 25:36
All right. Well, we are basically at the end of the session anyway. So I wanted to thank everybody for your questions, your attention, your curiosity, I see that somebody is asking when this will be available. Brett, you'll probably be able to get this uploaded by the end of the day, I would think
Bret Alarcon 26:00
yeah, I can do that.
Zach Malloch 26:02
All right. So we'll have the video up by the end of the day. And we'll find the the live to Demo topic, to posts with that. And that should also be up there before too long in the reliable RecTrac um RecChat archives. That's what we're doing RecChat
Bret Alarcon 26:16
Yup, under the Support Portal.
Zach Malloch 26:19
Very nice. All right. Well, once again, thank everybody for joining us, Bret, thanks for manning some of those questions. And Ross, thank you so much for all the information that we have here. And thanks, sir, to Kirsten for letting us know about that little bugs. We can get that squashed for you. Thanks again. We'll see everybody in two weeks for the next edition RecChrat. Bye, everybody.
https://vermont-systems.helpjuice.com/topic-docs/31_live_to_demo