What Are the Tools for Operations?
When maintaining a Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 R2 deployment, you use various tools for managing the different areas of functionality in a deployment. For example, you use Commerce Server Manager to perform tasks related to Commerce Server 2009 R2 specifically, but you use SQL Server Enterprise Manager to perform tasks related to database functionality. This section describes the various tools available for Commerce Server 2009 R2 operations.
Commerce Server Manager
Commerce Server Manager is a tool for managing and configuring Commerce Server 2009 R2 resources, sites, applications, and Web servers. Microsoft Management Console (MMC), a Windows-based interface that is included in Microsoft Windows Server, hosts Commerce Server Manager. MMC is a tool that presents a common interface for managing different server applications in a Microsoft Windows network. Server applications provide a component called an MMC snap-in that presents MMC users with a user interface for managing the server application.
The functionality in Commerce Server Manager is not available through either Web-based or command line administration. Instead, you access and manipulate most of through Component Object Model (COM) objects.
Commerce Server Staging
You can use Commerce Server Staging (CSS) to update content from one server to another or from one computing environment to another. For example, you might publish content changes from a development environment to a test environment, and then from the test environment to a production environment.
SQL Server Management
You will use SQL Server to do the following:
Define groups of servers that are running SQL Server.
Register individual servers in a group.
Configure all SQL Server options for each registered server.
Create and administer all SQL Server databases, objects, logins, users, and permissions in each registered server.
Define and run all SQL Server administrative tasks on each registered server.
Design and test SQL statements, batches, and scripts interactively by using SQL Query Analyzer.
Start the various wizards defined for SQL Server.
Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager is a graphical user interface for configuring your application pools or the Web, FTP, SMTP, or NNTP sites. By using IIS Manager, you can configure IIS security, performance, and reliability features. You can add or delete sites; start, stop, and pause sites; back up and restore server configurations; and create virtual directories for better content management, to name only some administrative capabilities.
Site Packager
Microsoft Commerce Server Site Packager is a deployment tool for packaging your Commerce Server site into a single file that includes IIS settings (metabase), the file system, resources from the Administration database, and SQL Server databases. You also use it to unpack the Commerce Server site, or sections of it, onto other computers.
SharePoint Commerce Services Configuration Wizard
This wizard performs a series of tasks required to deploy the services you select, such as creating a Web application in SharePoint, unpacking a Commerce Server site, deploying the solutions files that contain the SharePoint Commerce Services in SharePoint, activating features in SharePoint, generating cryptographic keys to use to protect sensitive data in Commerce Server, and so on.
SharePoint Central Administration
You can use SharePoint Central Administration to perform administration tasks from a central location. Central Administration is divided into four parts: the Home page, the Operations page, the Application Management page, and the administration pages for Shared Services Providers (SSPs).
See Also
Other Resources
Why Perform General Web Server Maintenance?