Blog posts by Filip Gondek2019-09-20T11:10:13.0000000Z/blogs/filip-gondek/Optimizely WorldRunning Instance bound license on the same Server/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2019/9/running-instance-bound-license-on-the-same-server/2019-09-20T11:10:13.0000000Z<p>A while ago I wrote a blog posts about how our licenses works and what the difference is between our instance bound licenses vs the old server bound licenses (we stopped selling the server bound licenses) and also what scenarios they work with.</p>
<p>See:<br /><span class="s1"><a href="/link/ce5c2f97e35140f3964ff3fbc8fb6c51.aspx">https://world.episerver.com/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2017/8/instance-bound-licenses-in-episerver/</a><br /></span>And:<br /><span class="s1"><a href="/link/e427ec4dfdbf4541ab85524e95c17547.aspx">https://world.episerver.com/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2018/1/site-definition-and-licensing-confusion/</a></span></p>
<p>With this blog I want to add and clarify one more approach when hosting on a virtual or physical server.</p>
<p>If you run our instance bound license on the same physical or virtual server with IIS it works basically the same as deploying to a web app in Azure. Basically one instance in the IIS maps to one web app.</p>
<p>In the example below we have Test, QA and Prod on the same machine with only one site. If the Instance bound license has 1 site and 3 instances this will be fine. If you try to add another instance in the IIS and try to activate it you will get license error and another instance is required. So make sure you have right number of instances in the license so you can cover your capacity. In the DXC Service you don’t have to think of these parameters, the sites and instances are all included as mentioned in my blog above.</p>
<p>The scenario we see below is <strong>not</strong> optimal for larger web sites. We always recommend one server for each instance for the best performance and up-time.<br /><br /><img src="/link/fb2fae8608584b28aee54c947ab8bda9.aspx" width="924" height="208" /></p>
<p>If you see at the picture below it says that this license is limited to 1 website and 3 servers (instances). If you try to activate one more instance or site with this license you will get an error like in the scenario below. In this case you must buy an additional web site.<br /><br /><img src="/link/43bca3cbedce4c06a5adf12af6258efe.aspx" width="902" height="387" /><br /><br /></p>
<p>Always make sure that you have as many servers and sites needed when running instance bound licenses.</p>License error on site after upgrade/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2018/8/license-error-on-site/2018-08-22T11:36:26.0000000Z<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>Do you experience this license error?</p>
<p><img src="/link/7f4ceb12043c4ec9a3cfbb944b40ae1b.aspx" width="476" alt="Image license-error.png" height="245" /></p>
<p>Lately some of you have experienced the license error message when upgrading to Episerver version 10.6+. Some of you have noticed this when making deployments to production or pre-prod and panicked. We have made some changes to the license file and model. If you experience this error don't panic. This can easely be fixed by logging in to the license portal and generate a new license. </p>
<p>For those of you who have not generated a license from our portal here is a quick guide:</p>
<ol>
<li>Navigate to <a href="https://license.episerver.com/">https://license.episerver.com/</a> and log in with your partner associated user.</li>
<li>Click on the "<strong>Licenses</strong>" tab.</li>
<li>Now you can choose how you want to find the license. Usually it's quicker to search directly on <strong>IP</strong> or <strong>MAC</strong>. <br />When the license is found you click on the licensnumber/Id to the left.<br /><br /><img src="/link/1dda0a5892814439b7f602ff29624613.aspx" width="732" alt="Image Screen Shot 2018-08-22 at 10.26.49.png" height="438" /><br /><br /></li>
<li>Click on "<strong>Send License File by email</strong>". Here you can choose the predefined email or write the email you want the license to be sent to.<br /><br /><img src="/link/9a4609bf90d544f6b0666d42b39c2c43.aspx" alt="Image licensebyemail.png" /><br /><br /></li>
<li>Now you should get the license sent to your email. Replace the old license file with the new one and you should be fine!</li>
</ol>
</body>
</html>Setting up and deploy Episerver Commerce in Azure/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2017/12/setting-up-and-deploy-episerver-commerce-in-azure/2018-05-18T11:10:10.0000000Z<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>Sometimes you want to set up Episerver Commerce/CMS when demoing or showing new features in Episerver for customers or a new project. There are some steps that can be confusing when setting up Episerver Commerce in Microsoft Azure.</p>
<p>I have made an instruction video that may help you set up the basics for an Episerver Commerce site in Microsoft Azure. I know there are many ways to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>deploy your solution but in this video I show the deployment from Visual Studio and DMA (Microsoft Data Migration Assistant).</p>
<p><a href="https://episerver.wistia.com/medias/4p7sm989zt?wvideo=4p7sm989zt"><img src="https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/11ed74a6217b381cdabb7ac00222288f8fc05b58.jpg?image_play_button_size=2x&image_crop_resized=960x540&image_play_button=1&image_play_button_color=ff553ee0" width="400" height="225" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://episerver.wistia.com/medias/4p7sm989zt?wvideo=4p7sm989zt">Episerver Azure Deploy - episerver</a></p>
</body>
</html>Site license FAQ/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2018/1/site-definition-and-licensing-confusion/2018-02-08T10:20:40.0000000Z<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>We get questions about how we define a site from partners and customers and when a new site license will be needed. In this blog I will explain when you need to have a new site license added. Observe that I will only write about site license scenarios not instances.</p>
<p>So when do I have to have a new site license or not?</p>
<p>These are the most common scenarios that we get asked about:</p>
<p><strong>I want to create a landing page under the main structure of the site but I want to link “<a href="http://www.landingpagesite.com"><span class="s1">www.landingpagesite.com</span></a>” to that page, is this under the same license?</strong></p>
<p>The answer to that question is YES. If you make a link from the DNS provider to a page under the structure this goes under the same site license. Linking from “<a href="http://www.landingpagesite.com"><span class="s1">www.landingpagesite.com</span></a>” to “<a href="http://www.episerversite.com/site/landinpage"><span class="s1">www.episerversite.com/site/landinpage</span></a><a href="http://www.episerversite.com/site/landinpage/"><span class="s1">/</span></a>“ goes under the same license. Just to keep in mind, building landing pages or sub-sites can quickly create large number of pages in the structure.</p>
<p><strong>I want a new domain/sub domain pointing directly to a new structure under the root node, is that a new license?</strong></p>
<p>The answer is YES, this scenario will require a new site license. In this scenario you want to have “<a href="http://www.newsite2.com"><span class="s1">www.newsite2.com</span></a>” or “ <a href="http://www.subsite.episerversite.com"><span class="s1">www.subsite.episerversite.com</span></a>” as a new “house” and own structure in Episerver. This can be managed directly in Episerver under the “admin —> manage web sites” tab.</p>
<p><img src="/link/594795961aff4784ad6959b197b680df.aspx" alt="Image Screen Shot 2018-01-24 at 11.13.25.png" /> <img src="/link/f96bc3582e574ced9ff09a411d6089a0.aspx" alt="Image Screen Shot 2018-01-24 at 11.17.39.png" /> <br />(The picture above shows 3 sites) (Having two "houses" means two site licences)</p>
<p><strong>I want to have the same domain but I want to link the domain to a certain language such as “<a href="http://www.episerversite.com"><span class="s1">www.episerversite.com</span></a>” and “<a href="http://www.episerversite.se"><span class="s1">www.episerversite.se</span></a>” that links to the Swedish version of the site, does this require a new license?</strong></p>
<p>NO, this does not require a new site license. In Episerver you can manage and add country specific domains pointing to a specific language version of the site as shown in the picture below. So domains like “<a href="http://www.episerversite.se"><span class="s1">www.episerversite.se</span></a>” pointing to the Swedish version of “<a href="http://www.episerversite.com/sv"><span class="s1">www.episerversite.com/sv</span></a>” is included under the same license.</p>
<p><img src="/link/e1ffbbd86f21407e90c9eff1112cbcc2.aspx" width="548" alt="Image sites.png" height="264" /><br />(In this image all the domains will point to the same site but under a different language version of the site.)</p>
<p><strong>I want to have different domains pointing to the same site structure?</strong></p>
<p>This is also allowed under the same site license and can also be managed in Episerver under “Admin —> Config —> Manage websites” . As long as the domains are pointing to the same site.</p>
<p>(as seen in the pictures below you can have different domains pointing to the same site structure)</p>
<p><img src="/link/5141216cf9fc42ebb0ab5c381ab7d44e.aspx" width="485" alt="Image Screen Shot 2018-01-24 at 11.34.55.png" height="265" /><img src="/link/237b0eef671e470e95b2d1b589770442.aspx" width="505" alt="Image Screen Shot 2018-01-24 at 11.33.34.png" height="264" /><img src="/link/5eada13430c449ac981252c93aa5d2e8.aspx" width="485" alt="Image Screen Shot 2018-01-24 at 11.32.15.png" height="283" /></p>
<p>Just to summarize the above. If some of these scenarios were all clear to you then you dont have to worry <img src="/Scripts/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif" alt="smile" />. If you felt unsure, maybe any of these scenarios above will make it clearer for you </p>
</body>
</html>New license model 2018/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2017/11/new-license-model-2018/2017-11-28T17:34:32.0000000Z<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p><img src="/link/9fe392d5a68a4b249cc29f615963a63c.aspx" width="698" alt="Image instance.png" height="164" /></p>
<p>Earlier I wrote a blog about how the <strong>instance bound license</strong> works (<a href="/link/ce5c2f97e35140f3964ff3fbc8fb6c51.aspx">instance bound licenses in Episerver</a>) when hosting customers solutions in Microsoft Azure Web Apps. From 2018 Episerver will remove the old <strong>server bound license</strong> and we will only sell <strong>instance bound licenses</strong>.</p>
<p>Now you may think, what?! Why?! How will I as a customer/partner affect by this.</p>
<p>For customers already running <strong>server bound licenses</strong> you will not need to change anything or upgrade the license. You can choose to upgrade your <strong>server bound license</strong> to get more flexibility surrounding your hosting environment. For new customers we will only sell one license, the <strong>instance bound license</strong>. This will make it easier for all to only have one license model in our price list. The license will be activated and checked through our license server.</p>
<p>With the new <strong>instance bound licensing</strong> we will have more control of all licenses out there for new customers and how many sites/instances the customers running. It will also make it easier for you as a partner/customer activating/deactivating sites/instances directly under admin as you do now for <strong>instance bound license</strong>.</p>
<p>If you are running physical servers you can equal one instance as one server. </p>
<p>For more information or questions please contact your account executive (fancier name for sales guy <img src="/Scripts/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif" alt="smile" /> ) at Episerver.</p>
</body>
</html>Episerver Campaign for developers/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2017/10/episerver-campaign-for-developers/2017-10-31T13:35:21.0000000Z<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>When we at Episerver are presenting Episerver Campaign for customers and partners we some times get the question: “is that the campaigns and promotions in Episerver Commerce?” The answer is <strong>NO,</strong> and I know it can be very confusing. It’s not the promotions part in Episerver Commerce.</p>
<p>In this blog I will explain what Episerver Cmapaign is and how you as a developer can request a demo account to start get familiar with the product. Before we show what is possible to do I will explain marketing automation in general.</p>
<h2>Marketing Automation what is that?</h2>
<p>Marketing Automation is a subset of customer relationship management that focuses on the definition, segmentation, scheduling and tracking of marketing campaigns. The use of marketing automation makes processes that would otherwise have been performed manually much more efficient and makes new processes possible</p>
<h2>What is Episerver Campaign then?</h2>
<p><img src="/link/f8b8031432924b0db5a09b59826599ed.aspx" width="181" alt="Image devices-main1-marketing-900x700.png" height="141" /></p>
<p>Episerver Campaign is a Marketing Automation tool that enables you to easily manage campaigns across web, mobile, email and text messages etc. You can connect with customers wherever they are, with messages based on real-time behavior.</p>
<h2>What can Episerver Campaign help our customers with?</h2>
<ul>
<li>Large-scale campaigns across multiple channels. Coordinate, segment and personalize large volumes of messages.</li>
<li>Ecommerce campaigns that drives sales. Plan detailed campaigns, including personalized product recommendations.</li>
<li>Triggered individual communication. Create welcome campaigns, reactivate customers, and reduce abandoned shopping carts.</li>
<li>Public sector and healthcare messages. Send confirmation and reminder emails and texts with high data security.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, “Cut the sales crap and tell me what I can do as a developer!” :-). Easy, Easy I’ll explain it to you now.</p>
<p>First of all you may wonder why you should have to integrate to this product? Well, there are many “whys” but like Episerver CMS/Commerce Episerver Campaign has APIs to make it fit to the customers systems and needs. A simple use case can be if the customer has a CRM that is not known or has not been integrated to. Then you can connect the CRM that triggers different MA flows in Campaign depending on for example status in the CRM. Lets say that the people working with the CRM changes a status on a customer from “new customer” to “loyal customer”. This can trigger a specific MA Campaign that sends out a specific Campaign only for the status “loyal customer”.</p>
<p>There are a couple of different ways to use this product for you as a developer:</p>
<p><strong>Native NuGet integration: </strong>Out of the box the customers will get integration to CMS and Commerce (will arrive in near term, still work in progress) that you install in your customers solution through NuGet. If you create a Episerver Forms you can connect to the choosen recipient list in Episerver Campaign as shown in the picture.</p>
<p><img src="/link/7d56ac874fd2409bac6116667b354cc9.aspx" width="500" alt="Image Screen Shot 2017-10-30 at 22.58.22.png" height="423" /></p>
<p>Next you choose the corresponding fields to save the data to, for example the "first name" will be saved in the same column in Episerver Campaign:</p>
<p><img src="/link/92f90105d5b5468e8f633d1e90931093.aspx" width="505" alt="Image Screen Shot 2017-10-30 at 23.11.17.png" height="593" /></p>
<p>The data will be saved in the reciepient list as shown below:<br /><br /><img src="/link/0f167b411e414a29a8b4ffa624b04053.aspx" width="760" alt="Image Screen Shot 2017-10-30 at 23.16.49.png" height="285" /></p>
<p>And it will trigger a MA flow as shown in the picture:</p>
<p><img src="/link/a1fe8941d6c44df5a3bf2f951db8a1f1.aspx" width="750" alt="Image Screen Shot 2017-10-30 at 23.22.35.png" height="387" /></p>
<p><strong>HTTP API:</strong> Very limited functionality. What you can do is basically trigger a MA Campaign. These are the functions you can use it for:</p>
<ul>
<li>Create new recipients</li>
<li>Send triggered emails</li>
<li>Blacklist recipients</li>
<li>Unsubscribe recipients</li>
</ul>
<p><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>an example of this can be: "[UrlToService]/unsubscribe?<span class="s2">bmRecipientId=foo@bar.com"</span> for unsubscribing.</p>
<p><strong>SOAP API </strong>. This API contains all the functionality that Episerver Campaign uses so it’s the most flexible and secure way to integrate to. You can execute virtually any function of Episerver Campaign from a remote system without using the web browser and logging into your client manually. The interface is bi-directional, which means that you can send and receive data from/to Episerver Campaign. The following processes can be executed with the SOAP API:</p>
<ul>
<li>Create recipient lists and add new recipients</li>
<li>Edit recipient lists and recipients</li>
<li>Update and synchronize blacklists</li>
<li>Create temporary and permanent target groups</li>
<li>Create mailings, add content and dispatch mailings</li>
<li>Bounce management</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Example</strong>: To query several recipients in the RecipientWebservice, the default method getAllFlat would return an array that has been flattened to the following pattern: [email1, firstName1, lastName1, email2, firstName2, lastName2, email3, firstName3, lastName3....] To process this array, the fields must be indexed to allocate the respective fields to one recipient.</p>
<p>Now you may think, that wasn't hard to undrstand! Is that all? Of course there is more to read. If you as a developer have a case and want to test Episerver Campaign then contact our support. For more information about the product or APIs see <span class="s2"><a href="/link/67cb85f93f1543da9b381de989f61118.aspx">https://world.episerver.com/campaign/</a><a href="/link/67cb85f93f1543da9b381de989f61118.aspx"></a></span></p>
<p><em><span class="s2">DISCLAIMER: Some of the functionality in the out of the box integration may be changed or added upon release!</span></em></p>
</body>
</html>Self deployment in DXC Service/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2017/9/self-deployment-in-dxc-service/2017-09-13T16:04:57.0000000Z<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>Since the beginning of DXC Service partners and customers have always asked why they could not deploy their code by them selves. Because of our SLA on the web-application and the responsibility of customers Episerver installations, the answer was always NO, it’s not possible.</p>
<p>Over the years we have learned and massively improved the DXC Service to be the best service for the Episerver products. We listen to our partners and customers to improve our services and products to be the best out there.</p>
<p>One thing we have done is let you partners in to our PaaS portal. "<em>Let us in to your tool you say?"</em>. Yup, you heard it right. Now it’s possible to deploy to the second step in our DXC environment (PaaS portal). What is so special with this portal? Behind the scenes we developed all the steps and checks that are necessary for a smooth and streamlined deployment process. </p>
<p>So you can now not only deploy to our integration environment (which you could do from the beginning) but you can now log in to the PaaS portal and make deployment to the <strong>pre-production</strong> environment with only one click (or two) <img src="/Scripts/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif" alt="smile" />. This will make it one step easier for your deploys. Why can I still not deploy to the production? Like I mentioned in the first lines of this post this may be possible in the near future. Deploying to production is still handled as it is today through our managed service team.</p>
<p>In our PaaS portal it’s possible to follow<span> </span>the whole deployment chain from when you click the "deploy" button to the end. It’s possible to deploy, reverse, check logs, configure and more.</p>
<p><img src="/link/2cdbd46cef0f4c43a13224b31b71630b.aspx" width="748" alt="Image Screen Shot 2017-09-13 at 14.41.45.png" height="82" /></p>
<p><img src="/link/45b2ebc51f4740368fcb0b4c6e74fa59.aspx" width="428" alt="Image paasprogress.png" height="231" /><img src="/link/5e5891016fc744618a19c7f325f886ee.aspx" width="321" alt="Image paasfirstcomplete.png" height="234" /><br />(Images from inside the portal)</p>
<p>So how do I get started then? This is a part of our Beta program and you must contact our support to get access to the PaaS Portal</p>
<p>For more step by step information read more here:</p>
<p><a href="/link/9b6c9ddb7ae54ebcbe1857d4f30ae984.aspx">http://world.episerver.com/dxc-service-self-deployment-guide/</a></p>
</body>
</html>Instance bound licenses in Episerver/blogs/filip-gondek/dates/2017/8/instance-bound-licenses-in-episerver/2017-08-31T15:33:33.0000000Z<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>There are some partners wanting to host their customers Episerver installations in the cloud. There are some considerations when it comes to the licensing in Episerver choosing to host the application in the cloud.</p>
<p>Just a brief explanation of our licensing model:</p>
<p>DXC Licenses consists of 2 versions; Server bound and <strong>Instance Bound</strong>. Server Bound is bound to a specific IP Address while <strong>Instance bound</strong> uses a validation system at Episerver to verify that it is valid.</p>
<p>DXC Cloud Service is a PaaS that combines licenses, SWA, managed services, security features, Enterprise Search and platform technology to deliver a simple solution that is flexible (unlimited sites) and elastic (solution scaling is included). </p>
<p><strong>Definitions</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>A server is a virtual or physical server on which Episerver software can be run. Any server that runs Episerver software requires a license.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A Server Bound license checks the MAC or IP address of the physical or virtual server on which it runs to authorize it to operate. A Server Bound license is required for each server that uses the Episerver platform. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A Instance Bound License is for public cloud hosting, These are tied to the number of running instances. An instance bound license can be seen as an on-premise server license based on a floating number of instances. A cloud-based site will "call home" when activated to register its running web app instance. As for server bound licenses, there is a limit on the number of instances that can be run under a specific instance bound license. A Instance Bound License is required for each floating instance that uses the Episerver platform.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the DXC Cloud Service all the licenses are included plus all the extra features that the customer chooses. This is very important to think of when choosing how you are going to host your customers solution. In the DXC Cloud Service we also automatically scale up on demand wich is included in the service.</p>
<p>In the instance bound licensing model, if you want to run lets say the production web app to 10 instances that is the maximum setting in the azure portal in the lowest tier, you must have 9 extra licenses for the scaling. If you have set to scale your Web App to 10 instances and you only have the default one instance bound license you will get a license error.</p>
<p>Configuration of instances and autoscaling in Microsoft Azure:</p>
<p><img src="/link/65dad867a3e343138413752cd7fc0dbd.aspx" width="755" alt="Image Screen Shot 2017-08-31 at 14.13.25.png" height="219" /></p>
<p>It can be confusing regarding Web Apps and instances but one web app runs default on one instance that is why you must at least have one license per web app.</p>
<p>Here is the smallest set up of an instance bound environment:</p>
<p>Lets say you want to set up Test, pre-prod and production environments</p>
<p><strong>Test</strong><span> </span>(no scaling) = 1 instance<br /><strong>Pre-prod</strong> (no scaling) = 1 instance<br /><strong>Production</strong> (no scaling) = 1 instance<br />Total number of instances = 3</p>
<p>Lets say you want to have 5 instances on the production for scaling:</p>
<p><strong>Test</strong><span> </span>(no scaling) = 1 instance<br /><strong>Pre-prod</strong> (no scaling) = 1 instance<br /><strong>Production</strong> (automatic scaling) = 5 instance<br />Total number of instances = 7</p>
<p>Just to wrap it up. Make sure that you are licensed to as many instances that you or the customer are using to avoid problems. If not scaling up the web app, one web app equals one instance. In DXC Cloud Service all the licenses are included depending on what product(s) have been chosen.</p>
<p>You can find more information under the section “managing cloud licenses”:<br /><a href="/link/65fa1c181cb943288e034d3ae875ab15.aspx">https://world.episerver.com/documentation/developer-guides/CMS/Deployment/managing-cloud-licenses/</a></p>
</body>
</html>