B2C Commerce Realm Move Preparation and Process

Pre-Realm Move Steps

• 3-4 weeks prior: Open a Commerce Cloud Support case, noting the realm move date, and new POD number. The full POD list can be found here for AMER PODs and here for EMEA/APAC PODs.
• 2-3 weeks prior: Provide new POD's outgoing IP address.
• Once prep is completed: Provide new Staging IP addresses if realm is not behind eCDN, or if root domain is pointing to a Salesforce IP.

• 2-3 weeks prior: Add outgoing IP of new POD, and DR (Disaster Recovery) POD to firewall settings of all customer and third-party integrations for back-end connectivity. The Support Engineer will provide the DR POD number.
• 2-3 weeks prior: Verify that the SPF record refers to the Production domain (for example, https://production-realmname.demandware.net/*), and not the current IP address.  This will ensure a more seamless transition for successful sending of confirmation emails after the move. Also see Best Practices for sending email via the Commerce Cloud B2C platform regarding the use of dots versus dashes.
• 1-3 weeks prior: Update the maintenance page for when Production is offline, if necessary.
• 3 days prior: Avoid submitting firewall change requests 72 hours prior to realm move.

Realm Move Steps

• On-Demand sandboxes are stored in a separate data center and are not impacted by a Pod migration. Pod sandboxes have been de-provisioned across the grid.
• PIG Move (Production, Staging, Development): Date communicated via case. Time is always during the 2-7 am maintenance window of the old POD's timezone.  During this time, all PIG instances and the storefront will be down.  In addition, sandboxes are required to be shut down for approximately 15-30 minutes during the maintenance.  Jobs will not run, so they should be rescheduled to before the move, or manually run after.
  • ~5 hours prior to PIG move start: Staging & Development instances are taken offline to prevent replications and other data changes from taking place, which helps reduce the overall downtime.
  • Pre PIG Move, SFCC to verify the count of customers and orders from PRD BM (just to have them in case of any ELS issues post PIG move)
    • Check the customer and order records by following the steps :
    • Open BM > Merchant Tools > Customers
    • Note down the count (along with time & time zone)
    • Open BM > Merchant Tools > Orders
    • Note down the count (along with time & time zone)
  • Ticket is flagged as Follow the Sun so the support team on duty will monitor the ticket during the move.
  • ~0200 POD time: PIG move begins.  Maintenance page is displayed.  Salesforce case updated noting it has begun.
  • Salesforce performs core activities of the PIG move:
    • Put up maintenance page and shutdown web/apps on old POD.
  • Kickoff final data replication to new POD (from old POD).  Sandboxes may be unavailable for 15-30 minutes during this time.
  • Start up all databases on new POD.
  • Startup web and apps on new POD.
  • Shutdown databases on old POD.
• ~0300-0700 POD Time: PIG move completed.
  • Support confirms Business Manager and storefront functionality
  • Support confirms MongoDB functionality
  • Maintenance page is taken down.  Case is updated noting completion.  
• For storefront IPs behind eCDN, Operations will manage any required changes. for storefronts not behind eCDN Customer will need to make DNS change(s) to direct traffic to new storefront IP addresses previously provided in case. 
  • Customer will need to update DNS if they have custom domain names for Staging storefront.
  • Customer can add staging domain and IP address to their local hosts file for testing until DNS propagates

Post-Realm Move Steps

• Verify Business Manager instances and storefronts are up. The Business Manager IP may need to be substituted for the hostname of instances not behind eCDN until DNS fully propagates.
• Verify connectivity with third-party integrations, processing payments, completing orders, etc.
• Verify external firewalls are allowing inbound access from new POD
• Verify outgoing mail, and confirm that customers are able to receive email after placing an order or signing up as a member on your storefront.

• Verify if the Control Center administrator has the required permission/s to manage instances in Control Center.
• Post PIG Move, SFCC to verify the count of customers and orders from PRD BM (just to have them in case of any ELS issues post PIG move) and compare it with Pre PIG Move count
  • Check the customer and order by again following the below steps:
  • Open BM > Merchant Tools > Customers
  • Note down the count (along with time & time zone)
  • Open BM > Merchant Tools > Orders
  • Note down the count (along with time & time zone)
• Analytics no longer lives on the POD, so it is no longer migrated during a POD move. For this reason, it no longer needs time to re-populate after a POD move, and should be available for immediate use.

Tips for a seamless move

1. Work with internal QA resources to create a verification and validation process to perform post-realm move.
2. Schedule resources to be available and monitoring the realm move ticket from realm move start.  Update the ticket immediately if an issue is encountered.
3. Reschedule any data or code replications that are scheduled to occur during the realm move window (9 pm ET day prior - 7 am ET day of).  Any replications running while the move is occurring will result in a failed job that will need to be manually cleared after the move.