Thread

For our projects we usually run 3 servers, development, testing/staging, and production.

Would I need 3 licenses for this scenario? 
Only one would be live to the world.

Thanks,

James

This is not official but it’s been where the license is just for the live server, so one. If you haven’t already, you might want to search on “staging” to see what you can find and how others are doing things. Natively, EE isn’t set up for that type of environment.

For staging purposes, one method is to turn the site off and only allow SuperAdmins to view it.

That way, you can check things out as a SuperAdmin.

Or another possibility is to have a miniature default template group that looks like the site isn’t up yet.

Once the site goes live, there will always be continued development and enhancements that need to be tested and debugged, without taking the live site down(which is not an option),  hence the development, staging and production servers.
We have many content editors that do all their work on the staging server, then it is updated daily to the production server at midnight.

The staging process also gives managers etal the vehicle to proof read, articles, newsreleases, and other page copy before release.

In this scenario I’m assuming that the db would also have to be synced.

Thanks,

James

Jim…Syncing isn’t really the way to go, or at the very least, isn’t the easiest way to do what you seem to want…

There are ways to work around the fact that EE isn’t a multi-stage CMS. Most do it all on the live site but use various features/settings/etc. in EE to achieve the same effect. For instance, you set up multiple entry statuses (closed, draft, prerelease, open) and assign them to an entry as it progresses through your workflow. Different editors/managers can be given different rights to control this flow. Once a manager approves, they change the status to open, it’s live. Or, one could set the date for posting at midnight, during the intervening hours the authors/editors tweak away, managers approve and the thing automatically goes live.

One can also set up template variations for previewing entries as if they were live on the site. They can be restricted so only editors/managers can see them, not the public. (this might be what Sue was alluding to)

So, there are many ways to achieve your end goal without the multi-server setup - most of us do it on a single server. If you are dead set on multi-server, you might want to search as I suggested in my first post and see just how the few in that camp are doing it.

Edit-Add: As far as ongoing development/debugging, that can be handled in a similar manner. Restricted links, restricted templates, etc.

Thanks,  I’m still in the very early stages of developing site architecture and user requirements.
I have been playing around with EEcore and so far love it.
Templating here for my non-php savy designers becomes so much more intiutive than say Drupal.

I’ll hopefully be buying my licenses tomorrow.

Can’t wait.

James

Core kind of limits what you can try, especially since it doesn’t include the membership module. You control a lot of things I mentioned through member groups and the restrictions applied to them.

Feel free to ask if you need help or have further questions. EE has so many ways of accomplishing things it’s always good to state your end goal with your question. Sometimes there aren’t direct solutions/comparables (ie: multi-servers) but plenty of ways to achieve the same end result. Good luck with your site.