Setting up Environments for Concurrent Development

Concurrent development works best with a well organized set of development and test environments, in order to ensure that changes are properly tested before being applied to the production environment.

Overview

We recommend having at least one shared development environment and one shared test environment, either on premises or hosted by Cherwell SaaS, in addition to the shared production environment. Additionally, each developer should have a local development environment in order to keep your concurrent development strategy running smoothly. Each environment should be a full server with its own instance of a CSM database, onto which all configuration and record information is stored. Before beginning development, the development and test environments should be replicated from the production environment as completely as possible.

Concurrent Development Overview Diagram

Create Multiple Working Databases

Use multiple CSM databases when implementing concurrent development using Blueprints or mApp Solutions:

Have one independent development database for each designer.
Have one master development database where one or more gatekeepers are allowed to make changes.

Designers can use their independent development databases (which are restored using the master CSM development database) to develop their individual system configurations. Only approved changes are applied to the master development database (which is restored using the current production environment).