Breadcrumbs

Environment Setup

The staging environment in Crassula is a dedicated test environment that allows clients to test new and existing functionality before deploying changes to the production system. This is a paid feature, and clients can request access by contacting their client managers.

The staging environment is primarily used for:

  1. Testing system updates and bug fixes before deployment.

  2. Verifying new configurations and integrations without impacting live users.

  3. Running performance and functional tests to ensure system stability.

  4. Training internal teams in a non-production setting.

Overview

Crassula operates multiple environments for different stages of software development and deployment:

Environment

Purpose

Development environment (Dev)

The environment where developers build and test new features, often running locally on a developer’s machine.

Test environment (Test)

A controlled testing space between development and production where functional and performance testing is conducted.

Staging environment (Staging)

A near-identical replica of the production environment used for testing updates, configurations, and deployments before applying them to production.

Production environment (Production)

The live system where actual business operations take place.

The staging environment is designed to closely replicate the production environment while allowing controlled testing. Unlike development or test environments, staging aims to mirror the real-world setup as accurately as possible.

Key Features of the Staging Environment

  • Realistic testing conditions: Staging environments replicate production systems, ensuring that updates, configurations, and integrations function properly before going live.

  • Preloaded test data: Staging setups typically use pre-configured test data, including user accounts and companies. In most cases, a database dump is created specifically for staging environments, closely reflecting the production database while excluding sensitive PCI-related information.

  • Non-PCI compliance: Unlike production, staging environments are not PCI-compliant, meaning they operate outside the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) scope. This allows for flexibility in infrastructure configuration, including:

    • Smaller instances

    • Exclusion of additional security tools (e.g., antivirus)

    • No uptime or performance monitoring

  • Differences from production: While staging environments aim to be as close as possible to production, there are some key differences:

    • No high availability of databases

    • No SSL certificate issuance or DNS configurations, as the domain is controlled internally

    • Different configurations for providers, with sandbox environments pre-configured instead of live credentials