Commerce Cloud Digital Instances

A Digital instance is a collection of resources that hosts the Digital tools for customizing
storefronts. You can access an instance through your internet browser. On an instance you can use
Business Manager to configure and manage data for your storefront sites.

Instance Types
There are four different instance types: Sandboxes, Staging, Development, and Production.

Sandboxes Staging Development Production

Usage Used by Merchandisin Simulates the This is the

customer g work is done production live instance
developers to here. environment. that is used
create and update This is used as for storefront
storefront code. the final step in transactions.
testing the Connected to
intersection of CDN
content and provided by
code. Goes Digital. If
through the active
CDN provided merchandisin
by Digital, but g is enabled,
doesn't cache. collects active
data.
Storefront
toolkit is
disabled.

Location Secondary Primary Primary Primary

Instance Group Instance Instance Group Instance
(SIG) in a Group (PIG) (PIG) in a Group (PIG)
customer realm. in a customer customer in a customer
realm. realm. realm.
 Data I/O Most system jobs Data and code Data and code Data and code
are disabled for are uploaded are replicated are replicated
Sandboxes. to Staging and from Staging. from Staging.
then replicated Data can be Active data is
to Production exported from gathered from
or the instance. Production
Development. and imported
into other
instance
types. Data
can be
exported from
the instance
and imported
into Staging.

Global Updated for: Updated for: Updated for: Updated for:

Release • Preview • • •
• General Genera Genera Gener
Availabilit l l al
y (GA) Availa Availab Availa
bility ility bility
(GA) (GA) (GA)

Caching Caching is Not connected Caching is Caching is

disabled; full file to the CDN disabled; no enabled all
system checks provided by file system the way
are performed. Digital. checks are through to the
Caching is performed. browser.
disabled; full
file system
checks are
performed.

Who Uses Which Instance Type?

Depending on the size of your team, one person might play more than one role.

Role Instance Type Responsibilities

Developer Sandbox, A developer creates or modifies templates,
Staging pipelines, and scripts on their local machine
and uploads them to their Sandbox instance
to test. Ultimately, they are responsible for
uploading code to the Staging instance.
They might also need to export data added
by merchandisers on the Staging instance so
that they have test data for their Sandboxes.

Note: Developers never use the

Development instance unless they are
involved in the testing process for the
production site.

Merchandiser Staging A merchandiser or online marketer is usually

responsible for creating campaigns and
promotions, managing product information,
and configuring search behavior.

Administrator All instances Administrators are responsible for granting

access to instances and functionality on
instances. They are responsible for restarting
instances, managing data feeds, and
uploading certificates.

Quality Development Responsible for testing the site in conditions

Assurance as close to production as possible. No code
Engineer development is done on the Development
instance.