Copying Threads and Code from One Site to Another

[Greg Tataryn]

I am sure like most, we have a test site and a production site set up on our cloverleaf engine.  We have only been using Cloverleaf for about a year, since we went live with various McKesson products.  During that process we were starting fresh in a test environment so at go-live we just copied everything from test into production, including the netconfig file then changed ports and IP’s as needed.

Now, a year later, we have several projects in the works some of which involve a good number of threads, XLT files, TCL code, etc that need to move from test to production.  Moving XLT, TCL, tables, etc is just a matter of copying the files from the test site to the production site but copying the threads is a different matter.  What are my best options, other than manually recreating the procs and threads in production?

Topic

[Davin Studer]

We recently did this.  We just created a new site on our prod box, and copied all the contents of the site folder from our test box to the new site folder on the prod box.  Then we just went into the threads and changed the ip/port settings to our prod settings.  Finally, we turned off the old site and brought up the new one.

[Greg Tataryn]

d studer wrote:

We recently did this.

[Davin Studer]

Yeah, if you only want to do a few thread I think you would have to do it manually.  I have not found any other way around this.

[Jeff Anderson]

I was hoping for a good answer. Like Greg, I have one box with my test and prod envirionments on it. I have to manually make the changes as well.

[Chris Williams]

It can be done, but I would not advise it unless you are extremely familiar with NetConfig’s internal structure. If you can write a NetConfig file from scratch you might be OK.  After all, it’s a text file containing a lot of lists, keyed and otherwise. If you were to edit the file directly you would be bypassing all the internal validation checks that occur when you change it thru the GUI. You could wind up dead in the water.

[Robert Gordon]

A simple copy and past should work, in  other words open the netconfig in the test site, copy the thread, and in the same gui session go to ‘live’ open the netconfig and paste. The last things you should change are your port numbers.  Have a few days before go live save the new netconfig with the go-live date i.e. ‘NetConfig.20101102’ and check it everyday until the go-live date to make sure you got all the procs and xlates into the live environment.

[Robert Gordon]

Once your ready for go-live, copy the NetConfig.date to NetConfig do a reload of your monitor screen, then start your thread, n.b. this only works if the thread is under the same process.

[Traci Zee]

I have found no easy way around this.  I actually manage my Cloverleaf interfaces like I would for any other development process: I version the code using ClearCase and produce turnovers for production with the files that change.  Installation in production is not handled by me directly.

I have 2 NetConfigs (and yes 2 separate views) in my Dev environment with one being the copy of the Production NetConfig.  I then copy/paste NetConfig changes to the Production NetConfig, check that into ClearCase, create a turnover instruction document which allows my Operations staff to install the new release.

The IDE makes this difficult and time consuming because

1.  The NetConfig requires separate view files and there is no way to associate the view to the NetConfig (old-timers will remember when views used to be linked to the NetConfig file – but an ‘enhancement’ changed this).

2.  I can’t copy threads from one NetConfig to another unless it’s in the same IDE NetConfig session.  I have to open first NetConfig, copy thread, open second NetConfig, open proper view w/o saving first view, paste, save.  Trouble is that I do this about 5-7 times for each production turnover. Very time-consuming, but accurate.

I’ve been doing it this way for years.  I’d love to improve on it!

Traci Zee

Sr. Interface Engineer

Emdeon

615.932.3960

[Bob Richardson]

Greetings,

We developed two hcitcl procs:

[Tom Rioux]

We have a proc here that we use when we want to copy only certain threads from one NetConfig to another….be it “test to prod” or whatever.  

The proc is called “getnetprotos”.   I’m not sure who wrote it or when.  It allows you to go into the NetConfig, pull out the configuration for those threads you wish to move.  The result is an extract file with only those threads in it.   You then concat the file to the existing NetConfig and push it out to a new NetConfig file (don’t save it to the existing NetConfig file name just as a precaution).

The only drawback to this is that you will have to re-arrange the threads in the view for the new threads.   We have used it in past go-lives where only a few threads need to be moved to an existing site.

Thanks….Tom

[Anonymous]

Thomas, would you please provide the tcl scripts you used?

[Author]

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