Building a Content Delivery (CD) server

A Content Delivery (CD) server delivers content from the web database to the public.

A configured CD server should not have access to any master resources, including the master database or the master database search indexes. This lack of access to master resources may cause issues when installing packages that contain items from the master database. A workaround for this issue is to always install all packages before configuring the site to be a CD server.

To set up the CD server, use the following steps. These steps assume that SQL Server and MongoDB instances have already been set up, preferably on a separate machine from the CD server.

  1. Create accounts to be used as app pools. For more information, go to What are the required accounts and groups to create?.

  2. Set up a Sitecore site. For more information, go to Sitecore installation.

  3. Secure Sitecore databases. For more information, go to Database permissions

  4. Install Commerce Server. For more information, go to Commerce Server Installation.

  5. Install and configure SCpbCS as a single server set up. The exception is that you must enable the \App_Config\Include\CommerceServer\CommerceServer.SwitchMasterToWeb.config.disabled file by removing the .disabled from the file name.

  6. Configure the Profile System Encryption. For more information, go to How to configure encryption keys for Profiles System data. This only applies to SCpbCS.

  7. If you are creating a Microsoft Dynamics AX solution, install and configure SCpbMD as a single server set up. Do not setup the Data Exchange service, it is only required by the CM environment.

  8. Set up Solr. For more information, go to Setting up Solr.

  9. Once the CD server has been set up:

    1. Publish all content from the CM Web database to the CD Web database.

    2. Index all content in the CD Web database, or copy the search indexes from the CM to CD environment.

  10. Download and enable the config file to disable all Sitecore-related master configs. The file is available at http://sdn.sitecore.net/reference/sitecore%206/scaling%20guide.aspx.

For more information on setting up a Sitecore instance as a Content Delivery server, go to Configure a content delivery server.