Multi Site Manager

This section describes the functionalities of the CQ5 Multi Site Manager (MSM).

With CQ5, you can manually manage multiple sites. When the number of sites in the same language is low (three to five), a manual process is possible. However, as soon as the number of sites grows or when multiple languages are involved, it becomes more efficient to use an automated functionality: the Multi Site Manager (MSM). The MSM lets you define relations between the sites and also lets you define to what degree re-use or control is exerted on the different sites. The MSM, once set up, does this automatically.

MSM reduces the time it takes to manage your websites and increases re-use for:

• Different language editions of a website
• Automatic updates of one or more sites based on a source site. It allows you to:
  • Enforce a common base structure and common content across all versions of the website.
  • Provide structure and content that the sites can freely use, thus avoiding duplicated work and improving the unified look and feel.
  • Focus on the differences between the sites.
  • Manage the content based on a fine level of granularity as the inheritance of the content and structure can be managed at a page and/or paragraph level.

This section describes several scenarios where using the MSM is easier than maintaining sites manually.

ENT Corporation, a large distributed enterprise, has a large number of subsidiaries in various countries. All of them share a similar look-and-feel. These sites share various components with one another and most are centrally hosted.

Corporate Communications at ENT can use MSM features to propagate press release content to all the various press release pages of each of the countries' websites. This is done simply by making the press releases section of the source website mandatory.

Additionally, the Knowledge Management department at ENT has gathered a large collection of FAQs that apply to most countries. To allow the surfer to stay in his or her respective country's website yet have access to the FAQ appropriate to that country, this content can be offered as optional on the MSM source site. As a result, the owner of a particular country's web site can subscribe to the content that is appropriate for that site. The content is not "forced" on the owner of a site.

Some time later, because of the reorganization of the site, the press releases section is moved to another location in the navigation on the source site. Because of MSM, this change is reflected automatically in all subsidiary sites.

UNORG, a multinational organization, hosts a website in 15 languages.

Experience has shown that multilingual websites often share a number of characteristics:

• Content trees are not identical in different languages.

• There is almost never a "lead" language in which all the content is available.

• It is not just about text (images mean different things in different cultures).

• Internal document structures (content objects) in different languages, or even different geographies with the same language, are often different, for example, because of differing legal requirements.

• The "if-language-is-not-there-then-switch-to-default-language" scenario almost never works (a French surfer does not appreciate suddenly being thrown into a section of English content).

But, despite all of these differences between different language sections, there is also a certain coherence between the languages that needs to be maintained.

The Language Manager monitors the differences between language sections and allows for the clean up of any differences between the various language trees, thus helping to keep the sections synchronized.

ENT Corporation, a large distributed enterprise, with a large number of subsidiaries also has a number of subsidiaries in countries like Switzerland, Belgium, and Canada that have to support a number of different languages per national site. But the set of supported languages per site must be decided on a per-country basis.

The combination of the Language Manager and the Multi-Site Manager lets you precisely control which content is visible in which country and how the various languages are managed and kept synchronized on a per-country level.

This section describes how to add a new language version of a web site and how to change language names and default countries.

To add a new language version of a web site using the Language Copy tool:

To change language names of default countries:

You can change the following:

• Language titles
• Country names
• Default countries (for codes such as "en,""de," and so on)

The language list is stored in /libs/wcm/core/resources/languages.

To modify the languages:

When your website consists of several language branches and when you create a new page in your reference language branch, you can start a translation workflow that automatically creates new pages in the language branches of your choice and helps you translate the pages by displaying side-by-side the page to be translated and the reference page.

This procedure describes how to start the translation workflow and how to display the reference page beside the page that needs to be translated.

The website must have at least two language branches.

Repeat previous steps every time new content is added to the reference page and needs to be translated in one or more language branches.

MSM enables you to create a site (called a live copy) based on another site (called a blueprint) and to actively manage the relationships between the blueprint and the live copy. The blueprint makes it possible to define structure and content centrally. The structure and content of the blueprint can then be used in the live copy.   

CQ offers you two ways to create a live copy. You can create:

• a live copy from an existing branch or page, through either a dialog or the keyboard combination Ctrl-Shift.
  
• a site that is a live copy by using a blueprint.

Creating a live copy within a live copy is also possible and described in this page.

To create a live copy based on an existing branch or page:

1. Open the Websites console.
2. Select the Websites folder.
3. Expand the New... menu and select New Live Copy...
4. In the Source selection tab, define the live copy:
   • Title, the page title, e.g. My Geometrixx Live Copy
     
   • Name, the page (node) name, e.g. mygeometrixx_livecopy
     
   • Live Copy From: browse to define the blueprint, e.g. /content/geometrixx
     
   • Exclude sub pages: check this box to exclude the sub pages from the live copy.
     
5. In the Sync config tab, set the rollout configuration (it is possible to define several configurations). The following configurations are available in the out-of-the-box version of CQ:
   • Standard rollout config
   • Activate on Blueprint activation
   • Deactivate on Blueprint deactivation
   • Push on modify
   • Geometrixx mobile rollout config
   For more information on each configuration, please refer to the section Rollout Configurations Available in CQ.
   Select for example: Activate on Blueprint activation
   Note: If you leave blank, the system default rollout configuration is applied. You can set a default rollout configuration for a branch instead.
   
6. Click Create.

Using a blueprint has the following advantages:

• It defines the source.
• It makes it possible to inherit properties like default rollout configurations.
  
• It allows for pushing of modifications.

To create a blueprint:

1. Open the Tools console.
2. Select Tools, then MSM Control Center. Click New... in the top-middle toolbar.
   
3. In the Create Page dialog, define the blueprint:
   • Title, the page title, e.g. My Blueprint
   • Name, the page (node) name, e.g. myblueprint
   • Select the Blueprint Template
   Click Create.
4. Open the newly created page and click the Edit button beside Settings.
5. In the Blueprint Settings dialog, define the blueprint:
   • Name, the blueprint name that was defined earlier can be changed.
     
   • Description, e.g. This is my blueprint
     
   • Source Path: set the path of the blueprint, e.g. /content/geometrixx
   • Thumbnail Image (optional): this thumbnail will appear in the live copy creation.
     

To create a live copy based on a blueprint:

1. Open the Websites console.
2. Select the Websites folder.
3. Expand the New... menu and select New Site...
4. In the Create Site dialog, define:
   
   • Title, the page title, e.g. My Geometrixx Live Copy
   • Name, the page (node) name, e.g. mygeometrixx_livecopy
   • Select the blueprint template and click Next.
     
5. Select the languages and click Next.
6. Select the chapters and click Next.
7. Define:
   • Site Owner: choose an existing user. Note: The Site Owner entry is a descriptive property.
     
   • Live Copy: uncheck to create a simple copy of the site.
     
   • Rollout Configs: set the rollout configuration (it is possible to define several configurations). The following configurations are available in the out-of-the-box version of CQ:
     • Standard rollout config
     • Activate on Blueprint activation
     • Deactivate on Blueprint deactivation
     • Push on modify
     • Geometrixx mobile rollout config
     For more information about each configuration, please refer to the section Rollout Configurations Available in CQ.
     Select for example: Push on modify
     
   Click Next.
8. Click Create Site.

The Geometrixx Outdoors Mobile  Site has a setup that enables to create a special live copy from the Geometrixx Outdoors Site (the standard, non-mobile one): when the live copy is created and when the standard site is rolled out, the content of the mobile site is synced with the standard site and the rendering components are transformed into mobile ones (the sling:resourceType properties are rewritten) to best suit the rendering on mobile devices.

The following process shows how to create a live copy of the Geometrixx Outdoors Community branch within the Geometrixx Outdoor Mobile site:

1. Open the Websites console.
2. In the left panel, select the folders Websites > Geometrixx Outdoors Mobile Site > English.
3. Expand the New... menu and select New Live Copy...
4. In the Source selection tab, define the live copy:
   • Title, the page title, e.g. Support
     
   • Name, the page (node) name, e.g. support
     
   • Live Copy From: /content/geometrixx/en/support
     
   • Exclude sub pages: uncheck this box.
     
5. In the Sync config tab, add a rollout configuration and select Geometrixx Outdoors Mobile.
   
6. Click Create.

CQ enables you to create a live copy within another live copy. The process is similar to the one described in the section Creating a Live Copy Based on an Existing Branch or Page, except that at step 2, you need to select the branch of the live copy where the new live copy needs to be created.

When you do so and assuming that some pages are skipped from the synchronisation between the blueprint and the live copy (for example a page that has been created on the blueprint after the live copy), the Create Live Copy dialog has a collapsible fieldset called Select missing pages... enabling you to unskip the missing page(s): the page(s) will be created on the live copy and will be part of the synchronisation scope. The dialog looks as follows:

Define rollout configurations that can be applied to blueprint and live copy pages. A rollout configuration consists of an event and one or more synchronisation actions:

• An event is a page event that occurs on the blueprint, such as a page activation.
• Synchronisation actions are performed on the live copy or the blueprint. Example actions are ordering child nodes and activating the live copy page.

When you configure a rollout, you define the actions that are performed on a live copy page when a specific event occurs on the blue print. 

To use a rollout configuration, you apply it to blueprint and/or live copy pages. The following logic determines which rollout configuration to use for a live copy page:

• When a live copy page has a rollout configuration, that configuration is used.
  
• When a live copy page does not have a rollout configuration, the rollout configuration of the corresponding blueprint page is used.
• When both the live copy page and the blueprint page have no rollout configuration, the rollout configuration that applies to the live copy page's parent page is used.
• When the rollout configuration of the live copy's parent page cannot be determined, the default rollout configuration is used.

The default configuration can either be:

• The default rollout configuration for the branch if it is set.
  See the section Setting a Default Rollout Configuration for a Branch to set it.
  
• The system default rollout configuration if no configuration is set.
  See the section Changing the System Default Rollout Configuration to change it.

To set a default rollout configuration for a branch:

1. In CRXDE, go to the jcr:content node of the page.
2. Create the following node below jcr:content:
   • name: cq:LiveSyncConfig
   • type: nt:unstructured
3. Create the following property for the cq:LiveSyncConfig node:
   • name: cq:rolloutConfigs
   • type: String[]
   • value: the path to the rollout configuration, e.g.: /etc/msm/rolloutconfigs/mobile
4. Save the changes.

The system default rollout configuration is set to: /etc/msm/rolloutconfigs/default.

When working with AEM there are several methods of managing the configuration settings for such services; see Configuring OSGi for full details. For example:

1. Go to the Configuration tab of the Web Console:
   http://localhost:4502/system/console/configMgr
   
2. Open the Day CQ WCM Live Relationship Manager configuration window.
3. In Default rollout config, set the path of the default rollout configuration.
4. Click Save.

When setting rollout configurations on a live copy page, the rollout configurations are only saved to the selected live copy page. Also, When a live copy is first created and when rollout configurations are set, the rollout configurations are only saved to the live copy root page.

To set a rollout configuration on a live copy page:

1. Open the page properties dialog of the live copy page. To do so, you can either:
   
   • Select the page in the SiteAdmin, edit the context menu and click Properties...
     
   • or, on the page, in the Page tab of the SideKick, click Page Properties...
     
2. In the Page Properties dialog, select the Live Copy tab.
3. Set the rollout configuration. The following configurations are available by default:
   • Standard rollout config
   • Activate on Blueprint activation
   • Deactivate on Blueprint deactivation
   • Push on modify
   • Geometrixx mobile rollout config
   For more information on each configuration, please refer to the section Installed Rollout Configurations. 
   
4. Click OK.

When a blueprint is created, no rollout configurations are saved to the blueprint pages. When setting rollout configurations on a blueprint page, the configurations are only saved to the selected blueprint page.

To set a rollout configuration on a blueprint page:

1. Open the page properties dialog of the live copy page. To do so, you can either:
   
   • Select the page in the SiteAdmin, edit the context menu and click Properties...
     
   • or, on the page, in the Page tab of the SideKick, click Page Properties...
     
2. In the Page Properties dialog, select the Blueprint tab.
3. Set the rollout configuration. The following default configurations are available by default:
   • Standard rollout config
   • Activate on Blueprint activation
   • Deactivate on Blueprint deactivation
   • Push on modify
   • Geometrixx mobile rollout config
   For more information on each configuration, please refer to the section Installed Rollout Configurations.
   
4. Click OK.
   

You can also access the blueprint configuration with the Control Center: to do so, refer to the section Managing Blueprints with the Control Center.

The following rollout configurations are installed by default:

Create a rollout configuration when the installed rollout configurations do not meet your application requirements.

1. Go to the Tools console.
2. In the tree navigation panel, expand the folders Tools > MSM and select the folder Rollout Configurations.
3. In the top middle toolbar, click New...
   
4. In the Create Page dialog, define the page:
   
   • Title, the page title, e.g. My Rollout Configuration
     
   • Name, the page name (node name), e.g. myrolloutconfig
     
   • Select the RolloutConfig Template.
   Click Create.
5. Open the newly created configuration page.
6. Edit the settings: click the Edit button beside Settings.
7. In the Rollout Config dialog, define:
   • Name, the formerly defined page title.
     
   • Description, an informative description.
     
   • Sync Trigger, the blueprint page event that triggers the synchronisation actions. It can be one of the following values:
     
     • On Rollout: the synchronisation actions are performed when the blueprint page is rolled out.
       
     • On Modification: the synchronisation actions are performed when the blueprint page is modified. Be careful when choosing this option as it might cause a lot of network traffic.
       
     • On Activation: the synchronisation actions are performed when the blueprint page is activated.
       
     • On Deactivation: the synchronisation actions are performed when the blueprint page is deactivated.
       
   Click OK to save the changes.
8. Add the synchronisation actions to the rollout configuration. A synchronisation action is defined by a Java class; the name of the action needs to be defined in the Java class and needs to match the node name in the repository.
   Synchronisation actions need to be added with CRXDE:
   
   1. In CRXDE, navigate to the jcr:content node below the new configuration node, in this example: /etc/msm/rolloutconfigs/myrolloutconfig/jcr:content.
   2. Create the node that defines the action:
      
      • Name, the node name of the action: refer to the column 'Node Name' in the table Synchronisation Actions, e.g. workflow
        
      • Type: cq:LiveSyncAction
      Click OK.
   3. Add the following property to the action node:
      • Name, the property name of the action: refer to the column 'Property Name' in the table Synchronisation Actions, e.g. enabled
        
      • Type: String
        
      • Value, the property value of the action: refer to the column 'Property Value' in the table Synchronisation Actions, e.g. true
      Click Add.
   4. Click Save All to save the changes.
   5. Repeat the former steps to add more actions.

The new rollout configuration will now be available when setting rollout configurations on a blueprint or on a live copy page.

The following synchronisation actions are available in CQ and can be applied:

When a content update, copy or delete from blueprint to livecopy is performed, the system does not copy or delete every node and property from the source to the target node. There are, for example, many properties and subnodes related to the internal functioning of CQ itself, that is does not makes sense to treat in this manner. Only the true user-relevant "content" of the page should be copied.

To ensure this, CQ has a set of filters that prevent certain nodes and properties from being copied or deleted in this situation. These nodes and properties are defined by node type and/or explicit name and are configured in the System Console (http://<host>/system/console/configMgr) in the following sections:

• CQ MSM Content Copy Action
• CQ MSM Content Delete Action
• CQ MSM Content Update Action

For example, by default the CQ MSM Content Update Action configuration panel specifies under Excluded Page Properties that properties matching the regular expressions jcr:*, sling:* and cq:* will not be updated on rollout.

In most cases the default settings need not be changed, however, if necessary the following can be configured:

• Ignored Mixin Nodetypes
• Excluded Page Properties
• Excluded Paragraph Items
• Excluded Nodetypes

Several tools and features are available for monitoring blueprint and live copy pages and their synchronization.

Rolling out consists of propagating the changes made on the blueprint to the live copy. Only live copy pages that have a rollout configuration with the cq:trigger property set to rollout can be rolled out.

The following rules apply for a rollout:

• A rollout can only be triggered on the blueprint.
  
• A rollout can be triggered for one page or for a page and all its sub-pages.
• A rollout can be triggered for a (page) component.

There are several ways to perform a rollout:

• From the Site Administration console:
  
  1. Select the blueprint page.
  2. Right-click to display the context menu and select Rollout...
  3. Follow the same steps as described in the "Rollout" part of the section Managing Blueprints with the Control Center.
• From the Control Center:
  • From a blueprint page, as described in the section Managing Blueprints with the Control Center.
    
  • From a live copy page, as described in the section Managing Live Copies with the Control Center.
    
• From the SideKick in the blueprint page, as described in the section Rolling Out (Page) Components.

The Blueprint Control Center enables you to efficiently manage a blueprint and its live copies. You can define the blueprint, navigate to any blueprint page and view the status of all the related live copies. You can also filter, based on a path, the live copies that are displayed. A context menu enables you to perform all necessary actions on a page (like rolling out or restoring a page) and also to access information about the current state of a page.

To open the Control Center:

1. Go to the Tools console.
2. Double-click the MSM Control Center folder below Tools.
3. Specify the blueprint path in the top left path field and click the refresh button.
4. In the left panel, navigate to a blueprint page. The related live copy pages are displayed in the middle panel with a status icon.
   Note: navigating through the blueprint tree does not update the top left blueprint field.
5. In the pathfield in the middle panel, specify the live copy path to filter the live copies and click the refresh button.
   
6. On the top right, click Legend to display the status icons and their meanings.

The Blueprint Control Center looks as follows:

When right-clicking a blueprint page (either in the left panel or in the first column of the central panel), the following context menu is displayed:

When right-clicking a live copy page (in the central panel), the following context menu is displayed:

It is possible to select page components in the blueprint page and to perform a rollout (or a delete and a rollout) on those components:

1. Open the blueprint page in your browser.
2. Select the component(s) that need to be rolled out.
3. In the SideKick, select the Page tab and click Rollout Page.
4. In the Rollout dialog, define:
   • Rollout Scope: select either:
     • Rollout selected components or
       
     • Delete + rollout selected components
       
   • Background rollout: check to run as a background task.
     
   Click Next.
5. Select the live copy page(s).
   
6. Click Rollout to perform the rollout.

CQ enables you to manage the inheritance from a blueprint at the component level of a live copy page. When you open a live copy page, you can view the inheritance status of each component, represented by a closed or an open lock icon. The inheritance for a component can be cancelled or restored.

To cancel the inheritance for a component:

1. Open the live copy page.
2. In the Sidekick, click the Live Copy Status button to view the status of all the components of the page.
3. The status of the components are displayed in the page.
4. Click the closed lock icon of that component.
5. In the dialog, click Yes to cancel the inheritance.
6. Reload the page: the open lock icon is displayed.

Note: it is also possible to lock or unlock a component by editing the component dialog and clicking the lock icon in the dialog.

To restore the inheritance of a component, apply the same procedure to an unlocked component.

A live copy page looks as follows:

The components within a live copy page have one of the following statuses:

The Live Copy component is not in lockstep with the blueprint component. Deletion, update or reordering of the Blueprint component does not affect the live copy component anymore.

The component has this status when:

• the live copy component has been modified (e.g. when modifying some text or styles)
• the inheritance has been cancelled by clicking the lock icon of the live copy component
  

When a live copy component container (e.g. a paragraph system) has this status, the order of the components inside the container is not inherited from the blueprint anymore.

CQ enables you to manage the inheritance from a blueprint at the properties level of a live copy page. When you open the page properties of a live copy page, you can view the inheritance status of each property, represented by a closed or an open lock icon. The inheritance for a page property can be cancelled or restored.

To cancel the inheritance of a page property in a live copy page:

1. Open page properties of a live copy page.
2. Click the lock icon beside a locked property.
3. Click Yes to cancel the inheritance. An open lock icon is displayed beside the property.
   
4. You can now modify the property.
5. Click OK to save the changes.

To restore the inheritance of a page property, apply the same procedure to an unlocked property.

The page properties of a live copy page look as follows:

Following behaviors apply when moving blueprint and live copy pages:

• When you move a blueprint root page, you have to reference all the pages of all the live copies in the appropriate dialog. The blueprint root page is moved and all the live copy pages remain linked to this blueprint.
• When you move any other blueprint page, the page is moved but it is considered deleted on the blueprint by the live copy. The live copy page will be deleted on the next rollout.
• When you move a live copy root page, the page and all its sub-pages are detached from the blueprint.
• When you move any other live copy page, the page is moved. If a version of the page has not been created, the original page will be re-created on the next rollout. Otherwise, the page is considered as deleted.

CQ enables you to perform a rollout as a background task (see Rollout in Managing Blueprints with the Control Center) that can be performed when the server has less load.  The rollout task is splitted into jobs. Each job can be stopped, suspended and resumed. Background jobs can be scheduled to run only at certain times.

To manage a background job:

1. Open the Tools console.
2. Open the Background Jobs page below the Tools folder.
3. You can:
   • view all the background jobs in the All Jobs tab
   • view only active jobs in the Active Jobs tab
   • select one (or more) active job and click:
     • Suspend to pause a job in its current state.
       
     • Resume to resume a suspended job.
       
     • Stop to stop a job.

The following information are displayed:

• State, the job state. A job can have one of the following statuses:
  • REJECTED, the job cannot be executed because the background system is too heavily loaded.
    
  • RUNNING, the job is running.
  • SUSPENDED, the job is suspended. A suspended job can be resumed.
    
  • STOPPED, the job has been stopped during its execution.
  • DONE, the job is done.
    
  A job can have one of the following transient statuses, which are usually not displayed in the console because a job does not stay long in this status:
  • NEW, the job has been created.
  • QUEUED, the job is placed in the background queue.
    
  • SUSPEND_REQUESTED, a request to suspend the job has been issued.
    
  • STOP_REQUESTED, a request to stop the job has been issued.
• Created, the job creation date.
• Remaining time to perform the job
  
• Progress, the job progress in the following format:
  • ROLLOUT: <blueprint-path>, when the job is being executed.
    
  • DONE, when the job is done.
    
• Output: click the link to view the job details. For example:
  STARTING: Rollout of [/content/geometrixx-outdoors/en] to [/content/mgo, /content/mygeooutdoors/en]
  DONE: Page rolled-out: [/content/geometrixx-outdoors/en] .Execution time=1115 ms
  

The jobs console looks as follows:

Background jobs can be scheduled to run only in a time interval. To define the interval:

1. In CRXDE, set the intervals property of /etc/jobs/schedule/DEFAULT to a String value in the format:
   hh1:mn1-hh2:mn2,hh1:mn1-hh2:mn2,...
   For example:
   
   • 9-11 which means: execute background jobs between 9AM and 11AM.
   • 9:15-10:40,14:30-18:15 which means: execute between 9:15 and 10:40 and between 14:30 and 18:15.
2. Save the changes.

Background jobs are suspended outside of those intervals, they can be resumed manually if desired.

When a new job is started outside the interval, it will first run for approx. 15 seconds before being suspended.

Updates to the intervals property are observed and acted upon within 15 seconds.