I am using an HTTP Deployer with SDL Tridion 2011 SP1.
After Publishing a Page, I see a success message but how do I find out where this Published Page actually went to? Did it go in a database, or was it stored on a file system?
Depending on your cd_storage_conf.xml
it is either stored in a database or on the file system. It is configured using the Storages
element and ItemTypes
element in the file.
The SDL Tridion Publishing process involves various parts of a SDL Tridion system (which actually can be distributed across multiple machines). This is usually setup by an Administrator through some configuration files. But lets take a look at the entire Publishing process first:
When you select an item for Publish, this item is being sent in the Publishing Queue as a Publish Transaction. Here it is being picked up by the Publisher service (TcmPublisher process). The Publisher will start with resolving this Publish Transaction. It basically determines which items must be published or unpublished.
The next step is that the (resolved) items are being rendered. This means transforming each item by executing its associated Template code.
Now we come to the Transport phase, this is hosted by the Transport service. This process will send the result of the previous two processes over the network to the specified Deployer endpoint. When you selected your item for Publish you choose a Publication Target Type, this Target Type is linked to a Publication Target (in the CMS) which contains one or more Destinations. Each of these Destinations will have a certain network protocol set (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, etc). So depending onwhat is configured in your Publication Target, is what will happen next.
Then follows the actual Deployment, the Deployer process runs on the Content Delivery tier (the server where the Transport service sent its package too). The Deployer receives the Transport package and starts updating the Content Delivery metadata, files, etc, with the result of the publishing process.
The Deployer doesn't write files to disk itself or sends stuff to the database, this is all done by the Broker (as instructed by the Deployer). To determine where everything actually goes, it is following the configuration as defined in the cd_storage_conf.xml
file. More detail on how to configure the storage can be found in the documentation (requires login).
So to answer your question, where did your Published content actually go?
First of all it went to the Destination configured in your selected Publication Target (these could be multiple)
On each of the Destinations, you can find the cd_storage_conf.xml
and see which items actually went where (being file system or database)
Now one note, this is all assuming a standard process. Since the Publishing and Deployment process can be customized by means of custom resolvers, renderers, deployers and storage extensions, really anything could have happened with your Published content. To know exactly you can trace the steps described in my answer, but you should also check with the people who setup, configured and implemented your SDL Tridion servers, since they might have done something special.