Chapter 1: Staging vs. Production vs. Development Instances

Difference Between Environments

One of the first items you should attempt to discern is which instance you’re configuring your SEO settings. Instances are web environments used for varying reasons.

There are 4 types of instances and Salesforce makes it easy to differentiate between the three using color variations.

• Sandbox Instance
  • A SFCC Sandbox environment is where marketers and developers can isolate the changes they have on the site.
  • The Sandbox environment is isolated, meaning, changes made in this environment do not impact any other environment.
  • The Sandbox instance is denoted by a Grey color scheme – see example below.

• Development Instance
  • An SFCC Development instance is where development work takes place; where SEO development ticket changes and enhancements can take place without risk of affecting a live site.
  • The development environment is isolated, meaning what happens in this environment will not be automatically carried over to the other environments unless explicitly exported and re-uploaded.
  • The Development instance is denoted by a Green color scheme.
• Staging Instance
  • An SFCC Staging instance is closer to the live environment, where you can configure the SEO settings for your SEO project, including where you can manage your website migration.
  • The Staging environment maintains a close relationship with the Production instance as Staging is typically set up with a replication cycle that pulls settings into Production.
  • The replication cycle is dependent on your preference and I’ve seen it run daily, every few days, or weekly.
  • The Staging instance is denoted by a Blue color scheme – see example below..

• Production Instance
  • An SFCC Production instance is the equivalent of a live site.
  • What users are seeing on a live site is exactly what is found in the Production instance.
  • Because Staging settings are replicated into Production, some SEO settings might be locked. However, others can only be configured within Production, such as the Alias file and Sitemap generation.
  • The Production instance is denoted by a Red color scheme.

Additionally, it’s important to note that Staging replicates into Production depending on a replication cycle. During a replication cycle, settings from Staging will be carried over to production, so the changes you’ve made in Staging will go live. I’ve seen brands set their replication cycle for every evening or once a week. It’s really going to depend on your brand and product catalog.

Based on your development process and phase, you might find yourself working in one or the other, or even across all 3. Knowing there are 3 types of instances may impact your workflow and your SEO configurations.

That is, you don’t want to work in a single environment without knowing their relationship or risking your optimizations not being carried over to a live site.

That said, work with your development partners and understand where it’d be ideal to create your optimizations and how / when those optimizations will be replicated into Production / a live site.

Throughout this guide, we’ll be working within a Staging environment.