IIS is not Serving CSS or JavaScript or Images when accessing Sitecore Admin

A possible reason is that IIS is not serving Static Content.  On the server access Server Manager and choose Role Services.  Ensure the Static Content checkbox is checked.

Sitecore 8 and Windows 2012 running .NET 4.5.2 gives 500 error

When you first install Sitecore 8 it will complain about the TargetFramework and as trained well you will go to IIS and change the version of the App Pool to 4.0.  Now you don't get the error but you do get a 500 Error.  You check the logs but no leads.

If you go to IIS and click on the sitecore website and then click on .net compilation you will see the real error.

It turns out that by setting the right .NET Version you hide the real error which is resolved by running aspnet_regiis -r

Sitecore 8 and Amazon RDS

This is my first install on Amazon so I thought I would document the steps as I go and provide any gotchas I have run into.  If you have run into any gotchas email me at chris.williams@readwatchcreate.com and I will add them here.

Step 1: Install Sitecore 8 Locally

The first step is to install Sitecore 8 on your local computer or another server instance where you have a true SQL Server (could be express).

Step 2: Set up RDS

Next set up your RDS database. There are lots of articles on how to set this up so I wont dive into that here however when setting up your RDS database make sure you apply these settings so you can access the database from your local SQL Management Studio.  You will need this in order to migrate the content from your local instance

Step 3: Migrate Sitecore 8 Databases to RDS using Migration Wizard

Download SQLAzureMW - SQL Database Migration Wizard to migrate the database to RDS

Oshyn has a good article on Sitecore Deployment on Amazon RDS that explains this migration step


To Be Continue ....