Moving Tridion Server and Web server on different machines

Question

I am running Tridion and "my website" on same machine and everything running well. Plan is to move "my website" to another server (new web server), I have moved httputility to new server and it is running. Now planning to copy whole "my website" to new server.

My understanding is

I will create a new "Publication target" in Tridion server, pointing to httputility on new server. When I publish any page I will select new publication target.

Question Do I need to create any database on new server?

Configuration files of "my website" under bin/config have an entry of license file, which is pointing to a license file stored in tridion installation folder, Do i need to move license files to new server and update the license file path?

Any other thing I need to take care of?

Answer 1

Few points need to remember while setting up Tridion on a different machine, which are below

1. As Alvin said you need a different licence file for your new CD server, which you need to put on upload folder.
2. Make sure your all servers allow access by doing changes in your firewall settings.
3. You need to enable a few ports through which you are be able to access data.

Answer 2

You don't necessarily have to create a new Publish Target. If you want to move the website with all content "as-is", then you can just copy the web root to the new server and move the Content Broker database to that (or another) machine. Once you have installed the Tridion Deployer (the HttpUpload, which you have already done), you can easily change the Destination URL on the Publish Target in the Content Manager. If paths have changed on the new server, the only you have to do is updating cd_storage_conf.xml to reflect those new paths, as you also have to indeed with pointing to the correct license file.

This has the big advantage that you don't have to unpublish / republish everything. If it's a 'simple' move, then that is definitely the recommended way to go.

Answer 3

This can be a bit much to solely follow community recommendations, but you seem to be considering the right things. Before attempting, I'd recommend backing up your setup and noting your changes.

This isn't everything, but here are some recommendations from what I know (have broken) with Content Delivery:

1. If this new "my website" replaces the existing one, I would make sure you still select the same Target Type (regardless of which Publication Target you use).

2. Update: see Raimond's post as you don't need to unpublish the same site. Don't forget to unpublish your existing setup. If you moved to 2013 (SP1) I would recommend decommissioning the Publication Target .

3. Do you use the storage layer (broker) now? If so, then yes you need to recreate or at least re-use your CD-side database(s).

4. You need to move or get a new license from SDL Support depending on what it's based on (typically a named server as well as CPU limits). Be sure to request or use the CD version of the license.

5. Be careful of files "My Site" relies on that are actually published. I've seen things like "configuration" XML accidentally checked-in to source control outside of Tridion, when they should have been re-published.

Finally, don't forget the services and file permissions you set up when you first installed Content Delivery. It's probably a good idea to follow the installation instructions again, optionally using the configuration and jars that work for you now.

Personally, I'm not sure how everyone else manages, but I seem to learn the quickest when I actually miss something.