Configure CD servers in Sitecore v8.2

In this article I am trying to share my analysis and knowledge to set up CD server on Sitecore 8.2

Content Delivery servers avail content to our website visitors. It could be possible to configure more than one server for scalability and improve the performance.

I am writing few recommendation which are required to configure Content Delivery for your sitecore project.

x-DB Analytics :  This feature is used to track contacts, goal, site visitor behavior and perform personalization. To enable xDB and tracking got to deployment location

 Deployment\SharjeelsWork\8Dot2CM\Website\App_Config\Include and enable or make it true in following configuration file

Sitecore.Xdb.config

x-Analytics Assembly Files : In web application, we are using web API  attribute routing then disable below dlls placed in bin folder of deployment location to avoid errors.

Location: \Deployment\SharjeelsWork\8Dot2CM\Website\bin  

o    Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.dll

o    Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Client.dll

o    Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.ReAggregation.dll

Session State: To configure clusters of content delivery or processing server it is required to share contact session across all browsers to use session state. You can get more idea after going through below link on developer portal.

https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/82/sitecore-experience-platform/en/session-state.html

Live session agent module: This module enables you to install and configure an additional server role on Content Delivery instance. It provide you to trigger and process automation states by time out for contacts and live session on website. To download this module please go to below sitecore developer group and install on your CD instance.

https://dev.sitecore.net/Downloads/Engagement_Automation_Live_Session_Agent/20/Sitecore_Engagement_Automation_Live_Session_Agent_20.aspx

Step 1: First install a Sitecore 8.2 instance with the help of my last Article.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sitecore82-installation-step-sharjeel-bilali/

Step 2: Once instance installation is done then configure Database connection strings placed in deployment location for me it’s \Deployment\SharjeelsWork\8Dot2CD\Website\App_Config

Connection string file name is ConnectionStrings.config

For CM and CD server, required to follow instruction from below table available on https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/82/sitecore-experience-platform/en/database-connection-strings-for-configuring-servers.html

Database	Connection String	CD server	CM server	Processing server	Reporting Service server
SQL Server	core	Enable	Enable	Enable	Enable
	master	Disable	Enable	Enable	Enable
	web	Enable	Enable	Disable	Enable
	reporting	Disable	Enable	Enable	Enable
	reporting.secondary (optional)	NA	NA	Enable	Enable
MongoDB	analytics	Enable	Enable	Enable	Enable
	tracking.live	Enable	Enable	Enable	Enable
	tracking.history	Disable	Disable	Enable	Enable
	tracking.contact	Enable	Enable	Enable	Disable

I did changes in connection string for CD server based on above table.

Step 3: Now download the spreadsheet that lists of all the configuration files that you must enable or disable for CM/CD server type. This information is available on https://doc.sitecore.com/.

After verifying this xl sheet I enable/disable few config files and found CD server in ok state. I am sharing my changes sheet which requires some enable/disable config in default CD config files.

Note : I am assuming Lucene search is in use. If you want to use solr then disable Lucene config files and enable solr config files inside AppConfig folder.

File Path	Config file name	CD
\App_Config\Include	001.Sitecore.Speak.Important.config	Disabled
	CacheContainers.config.example	Enabled
	DataFolder.config.example	Enabled
	ScalabilitySettings.config.example	Enabled
	Sitecore.Analytics.Processing.Aggregation.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Analytics.Processing.Aggregation.Services.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Analytics.Processing.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Analytics.Processing.Services.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Analytics.Reporting.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ContentSearch.Lucene.Index.Analytics.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ContentSearch.Lucene.Index.Core.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ContentSearch.Lucene.Index.Master.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ContentSearch.Lucene.Index.Web.config	Enabled
	Sitecore.EngagementAutomation.Processing.Aggregation.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.EngagementAutomation.Processing.Aggregation.Services.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.EngagementAutomation.Processing.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.EngagementAutomation.TimeoutProcessing.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Marketing.Client.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Marketing.Definitions.MarketingAssets.Repositories.Lucene.Index.Master.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Marketing.Lucene.Index.Master.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Marketing.TaxonomyCD.config.disabled	Enabled
	Sitecore.MarketingCD.config.disabled	Enabled
	Sitecore.PathAnalyzer.Client.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.PathAnalyzer.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.PathAnalyzer.Processing.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.PathAnalyzer.RemoteClient.config.disabled	Disabled
	Sitecore.PathAnalyzer.Services.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.PathAnalyzer.Services.RemoteServer.config.disabled	Disabled
	Sitecore.PathAnalyzer.StorageProviders.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.PipelineProfiling.config.disabled	Disabled
	Sitecore.Processing.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Shell.MarketingAutomation.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.AntiCsrf.SheerUI.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.Applications.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.Components.AntiCsrf.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.Components.Mvc.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.Components.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.ItemWebApi.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Speak.LaunchPad.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.WebDAV.config	Disabled
\website\App_Config\Include\ContentTesting	Sitecore.ContentTesting.ApplicationDependencies.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ContentTesting.Client.RulePerformance.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ContentTesting.Lucene.IndexConfiguration.config	Disabled
\website\App_Config\Include\ExperienceAnalytics	Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Client.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Reduce.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.StorageProviders.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.WebAPI.config	Disabled
\website\App_Config\Include\ExperienceProfile	Sitecore.ExperienceProfile.Client.config
	Sitecore.ExperienceProfile.config
	Sitecore.ExperienceProfile.Reporting.config
\website\App_Config\Include\FXM	Sitecore.FXM.Lucene.DomainsSearch.Index.Master.config	Disabled
\website\App_Config\Include\ListManagement	Sitecore.ListManagement.Client.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.DisableListLocking.config.disabled	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.Lucene.Index.List.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.Lucene.IndexConfiguration.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.Services.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.Solr.Index.List.config.disabled	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.Solr.IndexConfiguration.config.disabled	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.Azure.Index.List.config.disabled	Disabled
	Sitecore.ListManagement.Azure.IndexConfiguration.config.disabled	Disabled
\website\App_Config\Include\Social	Sitecore.Social.ExperienceProfile.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Social.Lucene.Index.Master.config	Disabled
\website\App_Config\Include\Z.SwitchMasterToWeb	SwitchMasterToWeb.config.example	Enabled
\website\App_Config\Include	Sitecore.Update.config	Disabled
\website\sitecore\shell\Applications\Reports\Dashboard	CampaignCategoryDefaultSettings.config	Disabled
	Configuration.config	Disabled
	DefaultSettings.config	Disabled
	SingleCampaignDefaultSettings.config	Disabled
	SingleTrafficTypeDefaultSettings.config	Disabled
\website\App_Config\Include	Sitecore.Commerce. ExperienceAnalytics.config	Disabled
	Sitecore.Commerce.ExperienceProfile.ReportingServer.config	Disabled
\Website\App_Config\Include\ExperienceContentManagement.Administration                 (Update 7)	Sitecore.ExperienceContentManagement.Administration.config	Disabled

After doing all above steps I forget to enable Z.SwitchMasterToWeb.config file which is the key file to configure CM server J. I got below error for the same. To fix this I just enable Z.SwitchMasterToWeb.config file located at.

Location : Deployment\SharjeelsWork\8Dot2CD\Website\App_Config\Include\Z.SwitchMasterToWeb

After following above steps my CD server is ready. Please see the below screen for the same CD server.

This CD server is based for Lucene search. To make it for solr we need to make some changes in config file to disable Lucene and enable solr. Soon I will share my analysis for solr based CD server.

Happy Learning!!!