We are currently using CRM Online 2016. We want to create an environment that is exactly equal to production so that we can test Update 1.
I was thinking of using steps below but got feedback that "you can copy a production environment but the copied environment will be in a managed state and you can’t develop on it." That sounded quite a strange limitation. Is it true?
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Hi Sachin,
In below cases copy feature can be used:
1. If you want exact replica of your production instance with data for UAT purpose.
2. If you want exact replica of your production instance without data for Development or POC purpose. Once you copy, you can do any modifications to your target environment and once all modifications are done, through solutions you can migrate those customization to production.
3. If for fail safe operations you want to copy production instance to sandbox and once production is upgraded, you can reset your sandbox instance.
It basically copies database in background and creates another similar instance for you to use.
You can do changes based on how solutions are deployed there, but it won't be a good idea to do any changes in your testing environment, you should consider of doing changes back into your existing dev environment and release solutions with fixes.
Hope it will help.
Thanks
Hello,
We have created clone of production many time to test our patches, there is no such limitation.
Thanks
If there are fixes required, can we also make changes to the sandbox environment?
Hi, yes. That's possible. You can schedule for update and once it is upgraded you can test your functionality.
Yes, first copy the production to sandbox and then upgrade the sandbox environment. Is that possible?
Hi Sachin,
You can ignore that warning. I have used this feature and there is no such restriction.
But, I want to understand how will you test Update 1? Because, when you do production copy, target environment will have exact same version as your production one. So are you going to upgrade it to update 1 and test?
Hi Sachin,
There is no such limitation, otherwise why would microsoft allow to copy Production to Sandbox. The URL (technet.microsoft.com/.../dn659832.aspx ) clearly states purposes of copying:
User acceptance testing
Upgrade testing
Preview in production (TAP/EA)
Training
You do not get it as managed copy for sure, you get the copy exactly similar to what you have in production. for e.g. if you have following solution in production:
Sales (Unmanaged)
Service (Unmanaged)
RibbonWorkBench (Managed)
You copy production to sandbox and you will get following in sandbox:
Sales (Unmanaged)
Service (Unmanaged)
RibbonWorkBench (Managed)
Now when you have to have development/configuration in sandbox; go to settings>>solutions>>click on new and add all entities or components you would like to change and later move this solution to production, only if you want these changes to be made available on production
here's a good read on solution management in CRM:
www.inogic.com/.../solution-management-with-dynamics-crm-2016
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