Content Porter - How it works

Content Porter(CP)  is integral part of SDL Tridion development to transfer content in DTAP environments. I have used it in various releases 5.3 sp1, 2009, 2011 etc. Its has been improved a lot in each of the releases. 2013 sp1 claims to be fastest CP ever.

Next set of lines i will explain some internals of content porter. 

Following tools/services are behind the import/export of a Content Porter package.

• Content Porter Client
• Import Export Service
• Core Service

 1) Content Porter Client - this tools is generally downloaded on the client machine from the CM GUI interface. 

It acts as thin client for user, which send user selections/settings to server and show the progress of import/export.

 2) Import Export Service - It is installed after running Content Porter server setup. Here import/export happens. It basically groups and wraps different method of Core Service.

if you open: http://CMSURL/ImportExportService/ImportExportService.asmx. You will see some endpoints. and from their names you can figure out the use.

Another URL http://CMSURL/ImportExportService/UploadPackage.aspx:  its used to upload package from client to Server side.

 3) Core Service - Its is installed as part of Tridion CM installation. It is used by Import/Export service APIs to facilitate the import/export of content.

Export Process: 

1. User selects content to be exported.
2. and that selections are sent to Import/Export Service
3. Import export service calls Core service APIs and complete Package is generated at server file-system
4. Progress of that is shown to user on CP client
5. at last exported package is sent back to User Machine via CP client.

Fig-1: Export Process

                                                               


Import Process

1. User selects package to be imported
2. Package is uploaded at server with help of client & import/export service
3. Service extract the package to a temp folder
4. Service read the package
5. Then items are updated in the CM DB using coreservice

Fig-2: Import Process

So in both cases(export/import) most of the work is performed at server side,  so it does not matter much from where you actually trigger content porter.