MSM and master blueprint

[boser87]

Hi,

could you please help me understanding pros & cons of the two below content structures?

The first one has the head-office site itself as master blueprint, the second one has a separate master subtree.

/content

    |- head-office-Berlin (act as master blueprint)

    |- branch-Hamburg (live copy from head-office-Berlin)

    |- branch-Stuttgart (live copy from head-office-Berlin)

    |- branch-Munich (live copy from head-office-Berlin)

    |- branch-Frankfurt (live copy from head-office-Berlin)

Vs.

/content

    |- master (blueprint)

    |- head-office-Berlin (live copy from master)

    |- branch-Hamburg (live copy from master)

    |- branch-Stuttgart (live copy from master)

    |- branch-Munich (live copy from master)

    |- branch-Frankfurt (live copy from master)

The main advantage for the first one, as I can understand, is: less steps needed to add a page to the head office and rollout.

The main advantage for the second one is: I always have a one click way to create a new branch.

Thanks!

[AnkurAhlawat · Accepted solution]

I would always recommend 2nd approach as in it not only I am always one click way to create a new branch. But also about content re-usability which is the main aspect for using MSM. Suppose you have 4 branches that uses  red banner and head office branch uses blue banner then in that case it wont be a simple rollout , you have to change the content for ever site. But if these common changes are in master then you can use a simple rollout and update only Head office branch.

Apart from it, 2nd approach is more structural and extensible as compared to 1st approach.

Although your use case might be achieved from both the scenarios, but personally i will go for 2nd approach and have followed the same in my projects.

[boser87]

I don't fully get your example. With second approach I would

1) modify the master with the red banner

2) rollout to the 4 branches. Then I would probably still need to

3) delete the red banner from the master as it's not really common to all the sites

4) and of course I need to modify head-office site with the blue banner.

With the first approach, I would

1) add the red banner to the head-office site,

2) rollout to the other branches,

3) then delete the red banner,

4) insert the blue banner in the head-office.

Basically same operations.

The only disadvantage that I see in the first approach is that I am adding something that is not needed on a live published site which could be risky.

This is not happening in the second approach as I am modifying the master copy, which is not published.

Any other practical real use cases to prove that approach with separate master blueprint branch is better?

Thanks!

[AnkurAhlawat]

These are only two advantages that i can think as of now of using second approach.

What i mean by adding red banner in master is that, you have an option to rollout to selected branches like 4 branches but not to master as it has blue banner. But if you have head as your blueprint that is not possible. And yes you are correct in first approach we are adding something that is not needed on a live published site which could be risky.