When you launch a new site on the GOSS Digital Platform our hosting team will manage the process beforehand and on the day. There are a few details we'll need from you in advance to make sure everything goes smoothly.
Your Responsibilities
Informing Us
In your Jira project you'll find a ticket called "Subsite go-live checklist". Copy this ticket and fill out the table with as much detail as possible. It asks for the following information.
Launch Date and Time
Before any site can go live we'll agree a launch date with you and your project manager. We recommend early go-live times so that the whole day is available to resolve any issues.
DNS Management
We generally don't manage DNS records for domains of hosted sites. We will provide you with public IP address(es) and CNAME records as appropriate in order for you to implement the required changes and put new sites live.
You should also ensure your DNS provider has arranged for the DNS to be updated in time.
When we provision an environment we will create two DNS entries that will remain in place for the lifetime of the environment.
We create an A record with a name in the format {clientid}-{environment}.gosshosted.com. We then create a second A record that is a wildcard record that covers requests in the format of *.{clientid}-{environment}.gosshosted.com, this allows subsites to be tested ahead of the go live date without the need to change any DNS within the hosted infrastructure.
For example if we have provisioned a new client with a client ID as client1 then the records for their production environment would be client1-prd.gosshosted.com and *.client1-prd.gosshosted.com. This would normally mean that for the purposes of a go live we would recommend for the live URL to have a DNS alias record to be created that has the value of client1-prd.gosshosted.com.
Where it is not possible to have an alias record, such as an apex record on a domain, then the IPs that our CNAME record resolves to can normally be used.
DNS TTL
Ahead of go-live, to speed up the DNS propagation when migrating from another provider, we recommend reducing the TTL for the domain 24 hours in advance. For example, from a 24 hour TTL to 5 minutes. Once the migration is complete this can be reverted back to 24 hours.
SSL Certificates
If you have procured an SSL certificate, you will need to provide us with the public and private keys (preferably in a .pfx format) so we can install it. Passwords should be provided separately. If we have generated the CSR we only require the public key and any intermediate certificates.
We can also supply SSL certificates for the environments we host, free of charge. See Let's Encrypt Certificates for more information.
Verifying Email
Before your platform can start using real mail servers you will need to verify the sender email addresses. See Verifying Sender Email Addresses for more information.
Robots.txt
The robots.txt file can be managed from within your subsite settings in iCM. The default behaviour is to disallow all crawlers.
Google Services
If you are using Google Analytics, Maps, or Tag Manager you will need to make sure the relevant IDs have been set up and any API key restrictions are in place for your new domain. See the final section of Subsite Configuration - Framework Features for more information.
Our Responsibilities
Generate a CSR
We will generate a CSR for an SSL certificate.
Applying the SSL Certificate
We'll apply the SSL certificate, whether you have provided it or we have.
Latest Site Build
We'll make sure the latest version of your site code has been deployed.
Configuring Subsite URLs
We'll update the areas of iCM (subsite definitions and autoconfig) where the new URL needs to be set.
Mail Servers
In production environments we'll set up the mail servers for the platform.
Check Installed Products and Integrations
One of our developers will check that GOSS product configurations and integrations are ready to use the new domain and/or IP address.
Check VPN Connections
We'll check that things are working our end.
On the Day
Assuming everything outlined above is in place, a typical go-live day looks like this.
- On the launch date we'll have a call to make sure everyone is happy to proceed
- The DNS switchover will be triggered
- We'll remove any IP restrictions
- We'll set up the subsite URLs
- We'll update our monitoring solution with the new URLs
- We'll make sure any reports we provide to you are updated
- You'll be responsible for testing
- You may want to submit a sitemap to search engines (see Sitemaps)
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