Multi Language Site Setup - Best Practice

Danny WINBOURNE

Vote:

Hi,

Our EPiserver CMS site is Multilingual which will eventually be in 25+ Languages.
Each language has its own URL, which is mapped to the correct langauge in the config file.
We have set this up, so that there is 1 application with 1 IIS virtual host with all the language www sites as aliases.

Sections of the site require SSL, so there is a multi-domain SSL certificate assigned.
This issue here is that there is a limit of 20 domains for a multi-domain SSL certificate.

We therefore need to look at changing the way we are hosting our sites.
Is there a "Best Practice" way of doing what we require?

The method we are proposing is to create a new virtual host that will just contain the www sites, and create a new application name that maps into the existing application directory on the file system. (So, each language site has its own entry in IIS, but points to the existing application directory).

Will this cause any issues?

Any suggestions most appreciated?

#46855

Jan 07, 2011 10:11

David Knipe

Vote:

EPiServer CMS 6 is licensed on a per IIS instance basis. So you'd need a new license for each IIS instance.

Think you'd be better off paying for new SSL certs...

#46856

Jan 07, 2011 11:45

Danny WINBOURNE

Vote:

Thanks for the reply David,

It terms of licensing, out client has 2 x 15 site enterprise licenses, so I think they could use them for each site (correct me if I am wrong).

Issue with SSL certificates is I believe you can only assign one certificate per IIS instance (again, I may be wrong).

Technically speaking, (licensing aside), would there be any issues using the setup I explained?

#46859

Jan 07, 2011 11:58

David Knipe

Vote:

The 15 site enterprise license was for CMS 5 are you using CMS 5 or 6? EPiServer can offer multi-site licenses for CMS 6 but I think its the exception rather than the rule.

We generally use load balancing when using SSL so the hardware load balancers take care of the certs and SSL offload so I am not overly familiar with IIS restrictions on SSL certs.

However SSL aside we've set up multiple IIS sites pointing to a common application directory without any issues.

#46860

Jan 07, 2011 12:12

Danny WINBOURNE

Vote:

You are correct in saying that the 15 site enterprise was for CMS 5. This is for CMS 6, but our client has arranged upgrade of these existing licences. This part I have not dealt with directly.

Thanks for confirming that the multiple IIS site pointing to a common applicaiton directiory works however. This should mean we can implent our ideal solution.

#46861

Jan 07, 2011 12:24

Anders Hattestad

Vote:

This is how you need to do it if you are using the site section to configure what start page the different host should have.

#46862

Jan 07, 2011 13:16

Danny WINBOURNE

Vote:

Right now, all languages are in one site tree (this is likely to chance however).
We configure which content (language) to display in the siteHosts section of Episerverframework.config.

This works fine currently where we have one entry in IIS, and the site URLs added as aliases.
We are beleive it will also work if each www site has its own entry in IIS as outlined above.

We are planning to move out to separate site trees eventually, but we need to find a nice way to quickly move the existing content out.

#46863

Jan 07, 2011 13:21