VIP Platform environments

An application has either WordPress environments or Node.js environments. The two different types of environment cannot be mixed within the same application.

• A VIP Platform WordPress environment is a server environment running a WordPress application instance, including web, database, cache, and WP-CLI containers, all connected to VIP services and tooling.
• A VIP Platform Node.js environment is a server environment running a Node.js application instance, including web containers and, optionally, Redis containers, all connected to VIP services and tooling.

When a new environment is created it is provisioned with a convenience domain by default (e.g.  example.go-vip.net). The convenience domain can be replaced with a custom domain in the VIP Dashboard for the environment.

While an environment is using a convenience domain, default settings are applied to /robots.txt to prevent search engines from indexing content that should not be publicly accessible.

Environment types and recommended usage

Every application on the VIP Platform has one production environment. A production environment is designed and intended to receive public traffic. Only thoroughly tested code that is ready to go live should be deployed to a production environment.

Applications should also have at least one non-production environment. A non-production environments should be used for testing updates (e.g. software, plugins, custom features) and performing quality assurance workflows before introducing those changes to the production environment.

New non-production environments can be created in the VIP Dashboard. The number of non-production environments that are allowed for an application is defined in a customer’s contract with VIP. These details can also be referenced in the Plan Details section of the VIP Dashboard.

To ensure that application code will run uniformly across each of an application’s associated environments, software versions and configurations should be kept as consistent as possible. Versions of software that are deployed to a WordPress or a Node.js VIP Platform environment can be managed in the Software Versions panel of the VIP Dashboard.

Local development environment

The VIP Local Development Environment is recommended for developing code for a VIP application. The VIP Local Development Environment is built to be as identical as possible to a VIP Platform environment, and is designed for developing, testing bug fixes, and adding new features.