As described in Operations Architecture, TOPICA may run in either a "web site" or a "virtual directory" (set up as an "Application") in Internet Information Services (IIS).

From now on, the term web home will be used for "web site or virtual directory (IIS application)".

The choice between web site and virtual directory (IIS application) determines what URLs must be used.

Each web home you set up in IIS must point to an existing folder on the disk.

From TOPICAs point of view, there is no requirement regarding where folders for the web homes should be created. But the organization hosting the environments may have such requirements - for example that such folders must be created in IIS's default folder C:\inetpub.

For internal development / QA environments, you will typically access the server by the name in the internal network. As a special case, the user's PC is called "localhost".

• Framework development / testing (e.g. by framework developers):

  • It is common practice to create a virtual directory (IIS application) for each version of the TOPICA framework in the default website (e.g. TOPICA_4.28, TOPICA_4.29, TOPICA_4.30), and set up multiple configurations (e.g. some of the demo configurations) in each web home.

  • That is, you will access the web homes with URLs like http://internalwebserver/TOPICA_4.29, http://localhost/TOPICA_4.29 and http://localhost/TOPICA_4.30.

  • Note
    Because the framework version number is part of the web home name (and hence: URL), do not update to new version "in place" - that would lead to confusion.

• Configurators / application developers typically focus on one application at a time.

  • Requirements:

    • It should be possible to work in different environments for development (DEV) and internal test (QA).

    • It should be possible to have different versions (of framework and configuration) in these environments.

    • It should be possible to update to new version "in place" (framework a configuration).

    • Example: at one point in time, the QA-environment should run TOPICA version 4.29, and the DEV-environment should run TOPICA version 4.30. Later the QA-environment should be updated to new version "in place" to run TOPICA version 4.30.

  • This is accomplished by this scenario:

    • In the default website of server "internalwebserver", create a virtual directory ("application") named "MyApp_DEV". In this framework instance, create one configuration "MyApp". This web home will be reached by URL http://internalwebserver/MyApp_DEV .

    • In the default website of server "internalwebserver", create a virtual directory ("application") named "MyApp_QA". In this framework instance, create one configuration "MyApp". This web home will be reached by URL http://internalwebserver/MyApp_QA .

For production / education / customer test environments, you will typically register one or more application-specific domain in the central DNS, and access the web homes using URLs containing these domains.

For example, you want to set up an application "myapp" in 2 environments: "prod" and "test". This can be done in one of the following ways:

• Separate web sites:

  • Create 2 web sites in IIS - each pointing to a folder containing a copy of the TOPICA framework AND a copy of your configuration.

  • Register 2 different domains, e.g. "myapp.prod.mycompany.com" and "myapp.test.mycompany.com".

  • Set up "myapp.prod.mycompany.com" to point to the production website, and set up "myapp.test.mycompany.com" to point to the test website,

  • You will now access your applications using the URLs http://myapp.prod.mycompany.com and http://myapp.test.mycompany.com, respectively.

• One web site, separate virtual directories (IIS applications):

  • Create one web site in IIS.

  • Register 1 domain, e.g. "myapp.mycompany.com".

  • Set up "myapp.mycompany.com" to point to the website.

  • Below the web site, create 2 virtual directories (IIS applications), called e.g. "prod" and "test", each pointing to a folder containing a copy of the TOPICA framework AND a copy of your configuration.

  • You will now access your applications using the URLs http://myapp.mycompany.com/prod and http://myapp.mycompany.com/test, respectively.

• One Web site, one virtual directory (application), multiple configurations:

  • This option should be used only for framework development / testing (see above under "Web home - internal environments").

    This option should never be used in production environments. If this was used, it would be impossible to run different versions of the TOPICA framework in the production and test environments.

At this point, you have set up a number of empty web homes.

The TOPICA framework is distributed as one ZIP-file.

Unpack the received .zip files to some folder(s) on the harddisk of the web server you want to install on.

Copy the unpacked files into the folder, that a new web homes point to.

Important
The resulting folder must adhere to the standard framework folder structure. Naturally, the .zip files the framework is distributed in, adhere to this structure. But it is easy to get one level of folders too many. Example:

A framwework distibution file 4.30 RTM.zip is extracted to folder 4.30 RTM. Folder 4.30 RTM looks like

4.30 RTM
    4.30.RTM
        App_Code
        App_Data
        App_GLobalResources
        App_LocalResources
        App_Start
        bin
        ... etc.

The new, empty framework folder is named TOPICA_4.30 After copying the contents extracted from the .zip file, the folder should look like this:

TOPICA_4.30
    App_Code
    App_Data
    App_GLobalResources
    App_LocalResources
    App_Start
    bin
    ... etc.

- NOT like this:

TOPICA_4.30
    4.30.RTM
        App_Code
        App_Data
        App_GLobalResources
        App_LocalResources
        App_Start
        bin
        ... etc.

In other words - it is crucial to copy from the right level of the unpacked folder structure.

At this point, you should have one or more working web homes. Now is the time to test whether this is indeed the case.

After setting up a web home in IIS, the list of default documents typically starts with default.htm. So when entering the URL referring to the newly created web home, the default.htm that comes with the TOPICA framework is run. This ends up showing a default start up menu, that displays a menu listing all (active) configurations that are set up in the framework instance, and some development related documents (DevelopmentLog, ReleaseNotes, etc.).

Next step may now be to set up configurations.

As described in start up menu, the default display is a menu listing all (active) configurations that are set up in a framework instance.

This is useful when developing and testing the framework, where you will need to test the framework with several configurations. But when focusing on one specific configuration (application), this menu will be annoying, and you might want to start up directly in the login form for that application. This may be set up using one of these methods:

• Use a URL that refers directly to the login form of the desired configuration/application.

  • Add /LoginForm.aspx?config=<configurationname> to the URL.

    If the URL to the web home is http://myapp.mycompany.com, and the configuration name is "myapp", use the URL http://myapp.mycompany.com/LoginForm.aspx?config=myapp.

• Use DefaultLoginUnique.aspx that comes with the TOPICA framework.

  • Add a default document DefaultLoginUnique.aspx at the top of the list of default documents in IIS for the web home. If the web home contains exactly 1 configuration, this page will automatically redirect to the login form of the unique configuration. If the web home contains 0 or more than 1 configuration, the behavior will be the same as the default (displaying the overview start up menu).

    Note
    Note that versions 4.25 and later are shipped with a number of demo configurations. These must be REMOVED from the web home to make this work!

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