Considerations for Moving from Development to Production

If you are moving changes from development to production by restoring the production environment from a .czar file taken from the development environment, you will need to adjust some configurations to enable integrations with other systems like email and SAML. Before creating the .czar file, adjust the following settings in the development environment to mimic the production environment:

• Set production email account as the default.
• Set the Current System Production E-mail Sender stored value.
• Set the Cherwell REST API base URL.
• Adjust browser settings and URLs if needed.
• Set external database connections, if production uses a separate account from development.
• Set CSDAdmin credentials, if you are using an on-premises system.
• Configure the Auto-Deploy Connection to use your production connection.
• If you use Trusted Agent, set the Trusted Agent Hub URL and key for production.

Before creating your .czar file, you should remove all test data from the development system, so that it does not get imported into production. Some of the common places you should check for test data include:

• Test ticket records, such as Incidents and Service Requests, Problem Management tickets, Change Requests, and Tasks.
• Supporting records, such as CMDB Configuration CIs, Knowledge Articles, discussion board announcements, vendors, Approvals, Journals, users, customers, and custom Lookup Tables.
• Automation Processes.
• Record ID numbers.

After cleaning up test data, you should perform system maintenance. First, perform the following data maintenance actions, one at a time, in order:

• Remove unused user accounts.
• Synchronize Team Info Business Objects with team list.
• Delete Temporary Data.
• Remove orphaned attachments.

Next, perform the following index management actions, one at a time, in order:

• Rebuild Business Object indexes.
• Rebuild system table indexes.
• Shrink SQL event log.

Once you have restored the production system with your changes from the development environment, make sure that your integrations are activated as production. The timing of this will vary depending on whether this is your first time using the production system or you are making changes to an existing production system, but some integrations that may need to be activated include:

• Trusted Agent
• Active Directory/LDAP
• User and customer authentication integrations
• Scheduled feeds
• Scheduled CSM Portal credentials
• Current system stored value
• Production Email Monitor
• Custom integrations using web service calls

Perform these final checks before opening the live production system to your users and customers:

• Check that the Cherwell Service Host is running on the CSM server, and that advanced settings are enabled.
• Check that the CSM Desktop Client, Browser Client, and CSM Portal connections are accessible.
• Check that authentication is working for users and customers.
• Check that inbound and outbound emails are working.
• Check that external database connections are operational.
• Check that the Cherwell REST API URL is operational, if applicable.
• Check that the Scheduling Service is queuing and processing events on time.
• Check that integration events are processing as expected.