Stale environments

Every month, GovCMS automatically removes stale environments (non-production environments) from the platform. This applies to both GovCMS SaaS and PaaS customers. The purpose of this is to improve the performance of GovCMS, by reducing the unnecessary cost and resources. 

A stale environment is defined as a non-production version of a website that is on the hosting platform that has not been deployed recently. This means that it does not have an associated Git branch and/or has not successfully been deployed for 90 days. Changes to content/data on non-production environments do not count as a deployment. Deployments usually relate to code changes. Once an environment has been removed, it cannot be restored. GovCMS can reinstate an environment copied off your live site, but cannot restore any old content/data removed from the environment.

How do I prevent my non-production environment from being removed?

If you do not want an environment to be removed, you must ensure it has an associated Git branch and is successfully deployed at least once every 90 days. Your development team or partner will be able to review and if needed, deploy environments you want to keep. If you do not have access to relevant projects, please raise a Service Desk ticket. If you do not deploy your environment, it will be removed.

Need help?

If you have any further questions about the removal of a stale environment, please check out our Knowledge Base or raise a Service Desk ticket.