Article #4 — Replication — Salesforce Commerce Cloud (Do You Know Series)
You need a staging instance with access permission.
The replication is to push data from one instance to another very easily. This replication process makes it easier for teams working on the project to apply changes seamlessly, without any human errors.
Note that, only a staging instance in a realm can replicate code and data to the development and production instance. Any other instances can not do any replication Out of the box.
How to access it?
Module for replication can be found in the administration section in Business Manager. It is only visible to the BM user only he has appropriate permissions to access and execute replication.
What can be replicated?
Code
If the code version on the staging instance is stable and tested thoroughly, it is good to push it to the production instance. On the staging instance development team can push code in different ways, but recommended is to use CI/CD tool to make builds. You can learn more about code replication and steps at the trailhead.
Data
There are global and site-level data that you can replicate from the staging instance. The global data are shared between multiple sites in the organization, for example, catalogs, and products. Whereas the site level data are only specific to the site, for example, payment methods, taxation, content, etc. You can learn more about data replication and steps at the trailhead.
It is always a good practice to test on the testing environment first before replicating to the production instance as untested code or configuration might cause issues to real users.
What can not be replicated?
Certain data which are not useful to replicate, for example, customers, orders, and custom objects meant to use in specific your instance. You can create a test user and test order on the staging instance, but that is not a real user or order so that should not be on the production instance.
Services, Jobs also can not be replicated as they will contain data and credentials specific to the test environment only.
What if any issue occurs?
You can check the logs and see what is the exact scenario and the case causing the trouble and fix it. Also, the last successful data or code replication can be reverted if required. Read more in this trailhead for more steps and strategies to follow.
Useful links
- Trailhead: Salesforce B2C Commerce Replication
About Do You Know Series:
This series is created to share important points for the Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It is quick to read and get important knowledge points for the developer to consider during work.
