Rejoining the contact management database

Kentico EMS required

Features described on this page require the Kentico EMS license.

The following steps describe how to return separated contact management database objects and data back to the application’s main database.

Warning

  • It is strongly recommended to backup both of your databases before starting the procedure.
  • The databases will be unavailable while the rejoining is in progress. You should run the procedure at a time when visitors or editors aren’t accessing the websites in the system.
  1. Open the System application.

  2. Select the DB separation tab click Join contact management DB with main DB.

    • The Database join wizard starts.
  3. Click Disable tasks.

    You need to prevent all scheduled tasks in the system from running, because the databases will be unavailable during the joining process. If a task is currently being executed when you click the button, the disabling action waits until the task is finished. The tasks will automatically be enabled again after the databases are merged.

    Disabling scheduled tasks before joining databases

  4. Click Next to continue.

    • The wizard displays a log while the database operations are being performed.
    • During this stage, all websites in the system are temporarily switched to Off-line mode.
    • Any regular visitors who arrive at this time see a message informing that the site is down due to maintenance. For users with the Global administrator privilege level, the system shows the current state of the separation wizard.

When the process is successfully finished, all tables and data from the dedicated contact management database will again be a part of the application’s main database. If you leave the Delete separated database option checked in the final step, the separated database is completely removed from the server.

Database rejoining on MVC projects

Off-line mode is not available for MVC sites, which are presented by a separate application. If your site is live, we recommend taking the MVC application down manually until the database rejoining is complete.

When the process of rejoining the database is completed, you also need to manually delete the additional connection string for the separated contact management database from your MVC project’s web.config file:

<add name=“CMSOMConnectionString” connectionString=“…” />.

  1. Click Finish.
    • The system brings all websites back on-line and enables the inactive scheduled tasks.

Completing the wizard automatically deletes the CMSOMConnectionString connection string key from the Kentico project’s web.config file.

Database rejoining on web farms

When reversing the database separation for an application running on a Web farm, you need to manually remove the CMSOMConnectionstring from the web.config files of all other servers.

Rejoining databases on Microsoft Azure SQL

If your contact management database was hosted on Microsoft Azure SQL, you need to manually perform the following steps after you rejoin the database:

  • Move data from the original separated database to the joined database. The process does not move the data, it only re-creates the required database structure.
  • Delete the separated database.