DHIS Working Environments - usage
- Rodolfo Melia
This page an adaptation of the generic https://psi.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DHM/pages/13271088 guidelines, specific for PSI’s DHIS system environments.
Most of the system configurations and products that we develop at PSI go through a process of development and testing, before their release to production. At PSI we use name those environments as per the table below.
 | Dev (or sandbox) | Clone (troubleshooting) | Stage (aka pre-prod. | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
URL | dev.psi-mis.org | Â | ||
Description | Shared Environment where developers new Programs or Datasets are setup for sharing work-in-progress and do config testing | An exact replica of the production environment, restored every night. Allows to troubleshoot reported issues. Allows impersonation. | An exact replica of the production environment., refreshed ad-hoc. Ideal for extended QA, Training and Pilots that do not require keeping the data. | Actual ‘live’ system. Official system of record. Source of analytics. Shall NOT be use for training, testing or development. |
Data Quality | Low Records are likely inconsistent/ incomplete. | High Same as production, last night. | High Data is volatile; Despite having a high data quality, it is not recommended for analytics that are intended to be kept for certain amount of time. | Very High Highest possible quality. Hi priority for troubleshooting in case of errors. |
Data retention | Blank database once a year. Data preserved for up to 3 months after DHIS prod upgrade to the next DHIS version. | Data will not preserved - refreshed every night. | Data will not preserved long term. Data is available for few days/weeks, between refresh sourced from Prod. | Official system of record. Data cannot be deleted. |
Testing, Pilots, Training | Limited to internal testing only. Could be used for training or pilots, nut NOT recommended. | Troubleshooting only. Quick tests (24h). | Pre- deployment or data related UATs. Ideal for short Pilots or Trainings. Data will not be preserved long term. | NO testing or training to be conducted in Prod. Could be used for Pilots if the data will be preserved. |
PII | Should never have real client data | Contains real client data. (restore from Prod) | Contains real client data. (restore from Prod) | The main repository of client data. |
Analytics | Available. Fragile (could break) | Full | Full | Full |
Users | Limited - Developers and Testers only | Limited - Need to be whitelisted | Open to all active users (based on last restore) | Open to all active users |
Stability | High  | High | High  | Very High Production has various levels of redundancy to ensure high availability |
Â