April 23, 2018

Sitecore 9 in Azure

Notes from a manual installation of Sitecore 9 XP in Azure. The goal of this was to fully understand all connections between the different entities in the solution.

This post will contain a list of notes made during a provisioning of Sitecore 9 with a number of modules.

Versions used:

Experience Platform 9.0.1 rev. 171219
Powershell Extensions 4.7.2
Experience Accelerator 1.6 rev. 180103

Later we will include Commerce 9.0 Update-1

Databases:

core-db
master-db
web-db
reporting-db
processing-pools-db
processing-tasks-db
marketing-automation-db
messaging-db (Rebus message bus)
xdb-collection-shardmapmanager-db (Microsoft Shard Map Manager)
reference-data-db
experience-forms-db
exm-master-db
xdb-collection-shard0-db
xdb-collection-shard1-db

Azure search indexes

sitecore-master-index
sitecore-core-index
sitecore-web-index
sitecore-marketingdefinitions-master
sitecore-marketingdefinitions-web
xdb (analytics index)

API keys

reporting.apikey (key needs to be 32 random characters)

XP "services"

The following list contains parts of the XP platform, that are not provisioned as Sitecore instances/websites

xconnect.collection

Type: asp.net 4.x site, provisioned as App Service
Connections:

xdb.processing.pools -> processing-pools-db
xdb.marketingautomation -> marketing-automation-db
messaging -> messaging-db
collection -> xdb-collection-shardmapmanager-db

xconnect.collection-search

Type: asp.net 4.x site, provisioned as App Service
Connections:

xdb.processing.pools -> processing-pools-db
xdb.marketingautomation -> marketing-automation-db
messaging -> messaging-db
collection -> xdb-collection-shardmapmanager-db
collection.search -> xdb

xconnect.collection-search IndexWorker

Type: Windows service or Azure WebJob
Is located inside the App_Data\jobs folder in the xconnect.collection-search package.

Don't forget the license.xml file
Connections: same as xconnect.collection-search, inherited from the App Service in Azure

reference-data

Type: asp.net 4.x site, provisioned as App Service
Connections:

xdb.referencedata -> reference-data-db

marketing-automation

Type: ASP.NET 4.x site, provisioned as App Service
Connections:

messaging -> messaging-db
xdb.marketingautomation -> marketing-automation-db
xdb.referencedata -> reference-data-db
xconnect.collection -> xconnect.collection service via https
xconnect.collection.certificate -> xconnect.collection service certificate ID

marketing-automation AutomationEngine

Type: Windows service or Azure WebJob
Is located inside the App_Data\jobs folder in the marketing-automation package.
Requires the license.xml file
Connections: same as marketing-automation, inherited from the App Service in Azure

marketing-automation-reporting

Type: ASP.NET 4.x site, provisioned as App Service
Connections:

xdb.marketingautomation -> marketing-automation-db

Sitecore roles

The following list of sites are all old-school Sitecore websites/instances.

CM

Connections:

core -> core-db
master -> master-db
web -> web-db
messaging -> messaging-db
xconnect.collection -> xconnect.collection-search !!! service url via https
xconnect.collection.certificate -> xconnect.collection-search certificate ID
xdb.referencedata -> reference-data-db
xdb.referencedata.client -> reference-data service url via https
xdb.referencedata.client.certificate -> reference-data service certificate ID
reporting.apikey -> reporting.apikey defined
xdb.marketingautomation.reporting.client -> marketing-automation-reporting service url via https
xdb.marketingautomation.reporting.client.certificate -> marketing-automation-reporting service certificate ID
xdb.marketingautomation.operations.client -> marketing-automation service url via https
xdb.marketingautomation.operations.client.certificate -> marketing-automation service certificate ID
experienceforms -> experience-forms-db
EXM.CryptographicKey - N/A
EXM.AuthenticationKey - N/A
cloud.search -> Azure search host url

Please note that the xconnect.collection connection string name has been reused on CM to point to the xconnect.collection-search service

CD

Connections:

core -> core-db
web -> web-db
messaging -> messaging-db
xconnect.collection -> xconnect.collection service url via https
xconnect.collection.certificate -> xconnect.collection certificate ID
xdb.referencedata.client -> reference-data service url via https
xdb.referencedata.client.certificate -> reference-data service certificate ID
reporting.apikey -> reporting.apikey defined
xdb.marketingautomation.operations.client -> marketing-automation service url via https
xdb.marketingautomation.operations.client.certificate -> marketing-automation service certificate ID
experienceforms -> experience-forms-db
EXM.CryptographicKey - N/A
EXM.AuthenticationKey - N/A
redis.sessions -> Redis cache host url
cloud.search -> Azure search host url

PRC

Connections:

core -> core-db
master -> master-db
web -> web-db
xconnect.collection -> xconnect.collection service url via https
xconnect.collection.certificate -> xconnect.collection certificate ID
xdb.referencedata -> reference-data-db
xdb.processing.pools -> processing-pools-db
reporting.apikey -> reporting.apikey defined
reporting -> reporting-db
xdb.processing.tasks -> processing-tasks-db
EXM.CryptographicKey - N/A
EXM.AuthenticationKey - N/A

REP

Connections:

core -> core-db
master -> master-db
web -> web-db
reporting.apikey -> reporting.apikey defined
reporting -> reporting-db
EXM.CryptographicKey - N/A
EXM.AuthenticationKey - N/A

DDS

Not installed in this deployment (yet)

Changes to the CM config:

   <sitecore>
        <reporting>
            <remote>
                <httpTransportFactory>
                    <param desc="serviceUrl">[URL TO REPORTING SERVER]</param>
                </httpTransportFactory>
            </remote>
        </reporting>
        <processing>
            <remote>
                <httpTransportFactory>
                    <param desc="serviceUrl">[URL TO PROCESSING SERVER]</param>
                </httpTransportFactory>
            </remote>
        </processing>
   </sitecore>