Hybrid Architecture SDL WEB 8.5 and SDL Tridion Sites 9

Well, In my previous post we saw how we can use GraphQL with SDL WEB 8.5 by simply installing Tridion Sites 9 Content Service that will work isolated and read data from 8.5 Broker. But, this has some limitations I saw some difference in the Broker Database of 8.5 and Tridion 9.e:g The "Component Presentation" table has a new column CONTENT_ID in the Tridion 9 Broker. This field is not there in the 8.5 Broker and this caused an issue while accessing Dynamic Component Presentations using GraphQL.

To, sort any such issues which we might face, we discussed the new Hybrid approach where we will have the Tridion 9 Broker and State Store Database with Tridion 9 Services Discovery, Deployer, and Content service running parallelly with 8.5 CMS .

High-Level Architecture Diagram

1. Install Tridion 9 Broker and State_Store Database (As per the recommendation by SDL we need to install SQL Server 2016 SP2 or 2017).
2. Update storage configuration as per the new Tridion 9 DB details in the Tridion 9 Discovery, Deployer and Content service(These services could be on the same box or in a new) and then install the services.
3. After installation of service run the “java -jar discovery-registration.jar update” from discovery service config folder. This command will register the discovery service capabilities.
4. The above steps/command will set up the services for the content delivery environment.
5. Next is create a new topology manager in order to set the publishing
1. We need to keep 8.5 and Tridion 9 broker DB in sync. So that we can run existing  8.5 and at the same time we should be able to query Tridion 9 Broker DB using GraphQL.
2. We need targets that will publish to both the Brokers (e:g WEB8_Staging, Tridion9_Staging, WEB8_LIVE, and Tridion9_LIVE). This will keep the existing env. working and at the same time, we can use Graphql.
• WEB8_Staging will point WEB 8 Staging Discovery 
• Tridion9_Staging will point to Tridion 9 Staging Discovery
6. There is another advantage here, so when you MIGRATE from CM 8.5 to Tridion 9 you already have your Broker DB up-to-date, content delivery microservices are already working.

The above setup will let you continue with the 8.5 and it will also give us the privilege to use GraphQL as well.


Happy Coding and Keep Sharing !!!