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In StoreFront how to switch to Secondary Store that was setup

jnordeng
jnordeng asked
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Hello.  Behind our Netscaler's, We have StoreFront 3.15 running on Windows 2012 R2 Servers.  This was setup with two stores, one to point to the XenApp 6.5 environment and one to point to the new XenApp 7.15 environment.  

So on the Netscaler, there was a new VIP configured for the secondary store.

The setup is nearly complete on the secondary (XenApp 7.15) environment and need to switch the main URL for StoreFront to the secondary store.  What are the steps to switch to not break the store setup and avoid or have minimal downtime during the switch.

I would assume I also need to update the Virtual Server in the Netscaler to point to the new farm.

In other words, for users, I don't want to give them a new URL space, I want them to continue using the same URL.

When this was originally configured, this was presented at some point we'd need to switch.

So just want to throw this out there to determine what the steps are.

Thanks in advance.
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Olivier MARCHETTACitrix Support and Infrastructure Engineer
BRONZE EXPERT

Commented:
For internal network your secondary store should be sharing the same base URL.
So I would say that the only step is to promote your secondary store as "Default website" using the "Set Default Website" option in StoreFront.

For NetScaler, you should have created a separate Gateway (new VIP with new IP address) pointing to your new 7.15 farm (DDC, StoreFront) and tested it. So In your external DNS you just have to modify the record IP address to point to your new VIP.

This shoudl cover the main steps.
jnordeng

Author

Commented:
Thanks Oliver.  Yes, the secondary site shares the primary URL space.  And yup, I've already been tested a separate VIP space, so that makes sense.
jnordeng

Author

Commented:
On StoreFront, flip the secondary store to the default.

On Netscaler, simply flip IP's for:
  • Traffic Management / Virtual Server/ Change IP
  • Netscaler Gateway / Virtual Server/ / Change IP

This way there is no impact to User's, we have the IP's already setup in monitoring, and are grouped together, new IP's don't quite follow that as we thought they were going to be throw away.  

If this works, that's a thought, otherwise we'll go the update DNS route.

Thoughts?

Thanks
jnordeng

Author

Commented:
This is what I ended up doing:

On StoreFront, flip the secondary store to the default.

On Netscaler, simply flip IP's for:
  • Traffic Management / Virtual Server/ Change IP
  • Netscaler Gateway / Virtual Server/ / Change IP


Though StoreFront routes properly, I am not longer able to launch any apps.  Most just give me the error "The published resource is not available currently.  Contact your system administrator for further assistance"  Once in awhile I get a socket error.

In Director, it is simply showing Connection Timeout.  Confused as I did make sure all was working properly before swapping IP's and the store.


I'll flip back in the morning and see if this is in a usable state again.  Trying to flip IP's to assist with numerous firewall rules and ease of transition.




Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
jnordeng

Author

Commented:
Just something I noticed while trying to troubleshoot this, in the StoreFront server, I had to create a second Netscaler Gateway when I setup my second store.  I noticed that even if I flip my Default store to the XenApp 7.15 farm that the Netscaler gatewy in Manage Netscaler Gateways says used by Store 'NO"  to my secondary store I had originally setup which is for XenApp 7.15 and my original store which was setup for XenApp 6.5 says "YES" to Used by store.  If I flip the STA's/Delivery Controllers defined for each to point to the other, nothing happens.  So think my issue here is related to this setting.  Even if I switched DNS my concern is I'd never be able to be rid of the secondary store.

I am not finding anything useful (yet) on how this works... but something I am referencing.  And yes, the URL is the same for both. which matches the Base URL for the Storefront Site.

Thanks in advance for guidance
Commented:
This was referenced in another ticket, but the missing key was in StoreFront to select the Configure Remote Access Settings and select the new store to enable this.  You will see once this flag is checked in the Manage Netscaler Gateways that the 'Used by Store" will change from No to Yes.