Multi-Tier Environment Recommendations

Application Number of Tiers
ADM

1 Tier

Though the decision to use multiple tiers is based on customer requirements, avoid multi-tier setups because of the inherent overhead in code promotion management. One qualified technical FTE is necessary for this setup. A client may require a multiple tier setup because their industry is heavily regulated (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry) or to comply with corporate IT policies (e.g., banking requests require a separate production environment and data center network).
Data Quality
  • 1 Tier (Cleansing Reports)
  • 2 Tier (Data Quality)
Mass Maintenance 3 Tier (with or without Data Quality)
Master Data Management 3 Tier minimum

In Multi-Instancing, code is not promoted between Stewardship Tier environments; multiple Stewardship Tier instances manage “different” parts of the migration project.

Use multiple instances to address performance issues, volume issues or to separate waves to make managing them easier.

When determining whether to use multiple instances, consider the number of concurrent waves, the number of users and WebApps, data volumes and testing cycles.

HCM and HR data almost always requires an additional Stewardship Tier instance. It is a best practice to isolate HR data to its own server set.

Align Encryption Keys Across Multi-Tier Environments

When working with a multi-tier environment, encryption keys must be aligned across instances. This will enable records encrypted in one system to be transported across to another.

NOTE: Before doing this, back up all information on Source / Target so that you can restore the values if needed. It is recommended to run these steps when an environment is being built.

  1. Turn off encryption on all columns on the target Stewardship Tier site.

  2. Record the current Data and KeyShortCode values from the CranSoft.dbo.Key table for the Stewardship Tier target site (for backup purposes).

  3. Record the EncryptionKey & EncryptionAlgorithm values from the {Install Directory} web.config file for the Stewardship Tier target site (for backup purposes).

  4. Copy the Data and KeyShortCode values in the CranSoft.dbo.Key table from the source Stewardship Tier database and update them in the target Stewardship Tier database. Updating the Data field will require the following conversion to set the value correctly:

    NOTE: Run this query on the Target Stewardship Tier database. Values in <> need to be replaced with the appropriate values from the source DSP database. The <> characters should be dropped.

    USE [CranSoft]

    GO

    UPDATE [dbo].[Key]

    SET [Data] = Convert(varbinary(300),'Data_ValueToUpdate', 1),

    [KeyShortCode] = 'KeyShortCode_ValueToUpdate'

    WHERE KeyId = 'Enter KeyId to update'

    GO

  5. Copy the EncryptionKey & EncryptionAlgorithm values from the {Install Directory\\\\web\web.config file from the source Stewardship Tier site into the target Stewardship Tier site's web.config file.
  6. Turn on encryption on all columns on the target Stewardship Tier site.
  7. CTS a record with encrypted data (e.g. DataSource)
  8. Ensure record can be used (for example, test the connection and then try to decrypt and encrypt).

If you need additional support, please contact Syniti Support.