Creating a sandbox for Enterprise in Azure

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06-15-2018 08:38 AM
BugPie
by
Occasional Contributor III

Hello out there. My organization is about to take the leap to Enterprise 10.6 and we are also going for our first Azure application deployment. I'm looking for suggestions, documentation, ideas etc on how we might setup a test site without Manually creating it from scratch. Or maybe that's what we do need to do? 

some background: Currently we are using Server 10.3.1 (no portal) along with a custom internal web map application. Back when we built this, we built two sites from the ground up. Our beta server site which is on a server (testserver) feeds into a beta web map app (testmapapp.domain.com) where we are able to connect our other test apps to it. Example, our test salesforce site is connected to testmapapp.domain.com so we can test SF data in the testmapapp.  Our prod server site and application (prodmapapp.domain.com) lives on a separate machine (prodserver). So all our prod apps are talking to our prod GIS sites. Hope that's clear enough?

So now that we are going to Azure and plan on using Cloud Builder how would we organize our new env and how do we build them? One option I've been told is that we can just move our Azure site to a new server and have a replica site as a beta. That would work I think, but there are all sorts of other apps in beta sites we need to connect to, not the prod apps we will build our prod site with. 

So, how do you then change all the services so that they are accessed via test.mapapp.domain.com? From what I can tell if we just moved our entire site to another server in azure, wouldn't I just have another site who's services are all at prodmapapp.domain.com? So do we just change IIS or DNS so the test site we created is accessed with the test urls? Same with the enterprise gdb? Do I have to manually change the data sources on all the services and views so they are looking for testserver > enterprise gdb instead of prodserver enterprise gdb?

I guess the big picture i'm looking at is whether we should clone our prod site in azure and reconfigure all the touch points so we connect to our other beta systems? OR do we just do the Enterprise build from scratch for Beta and connect it back to our other beta apps piece by piece? Maybe a hybrid approach?

Any thoughts, recs?!

Thank you

Collin 

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3 Replies
BugPie
by
Occasional Contributor III

Are there any members of the Azure group here on Geonet that have built a beta/test site along side their production? Even if it's totally different than what I've outlined? Anything will help us out at this point! 

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JohannaKraus2
Occasional Contributor

Did you find an Azure group that was able to provide guidance?  We are also interested in using Azure.

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BugPie
by
Occasional Contributor III

My apologies for missing this. Short answer is no. I've been relying on ESRI support for GIS side and MS support for Azure side. The vendor who has helped us to this point has washed their hands of this project and considered it closed so I need to pay more to get their help. ack.

Other than that, I just lean on geonet and the fellow nerds our there making maps. Sorry I can't be more helpful. It's been quite the learning curve for me, to be honest. I would recommend that you have someone on board that can at least navigate Azure for you.  Talk about an endless pit of options. 

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