Concept: publishing servers versus publishing services

The publishing service is used by Site Designer when publishing new websites and when adding pages to an already existing website.

■    iMIS uses publishing services to render and place files into the local file system of web servers that have been prepared to host CM websites. Currently, these files are:

□    Rendered output of a content record (browser-readable .aspx files)

□    Downloadable file attachments that are defined in a ContentFile iPart.

■    iMIS does not "push" files to a publishing service when an iMIS user performs an action that publishes a content record. Instead, every publishing service regularly polls the iMIS database to check whether any publishing requests have been queued up for the corresponding publishing server. For more information, refer to Concept: publishing CM content.

A CM publishing server is an added control layer to a specific instance of an iMIS publishing service that provides important configuration information and enables sophisticated publishing control for content records developed with the Content Designer tool.

■    Through the publishing server's assignment to the Publish on Servers field in content folders, the publishing service can determine which content records it should render when it finds publishing requests during each polling interval.

■    Through the Local Protected Path and Local Publish Path fields in the publishing server definition, the publishing service can determine where to place specific types of files in the file system of web servers that have been prepared to host CM websites.

When you install iMIS on a server host, the installer automatically defines corresponding publishing service - publishing server pair:

■    A single default instance of the Windows service AsiPublishing15 is placed on the server host, identified by a unique code string that you specify during installation.

■    Connection information to the iMIS database is automatically defined by the installer.

■    A corresponding publishing server is defined in the iMIS database and given a default configuration. You can use Content Management > Maintenance > Publishing Servers to change the default configuration.