Duplicate Existing, Deployed GAE Project

[Phil Miller]

This backend GAE server is in prod but hasn't been updated in a few years. Now I need to make changes and so much has changed including Eclipse, GAE and Objectify. After struggling to get even a deployable, updated project working I decided to just start with a fresh install of Eclipse, the Google Cloud plugin etc and rebuild the server and update Objectify to the latest version. What I'd like to do is duplicate the existing project in the Google Cloud Console somehow, including the database, get a new version working against that server, then do a final database copy from prod to dev and then go live. I have no idea whether this is possible. Seems simple in theory but I don't see a duplicate feature in the app console and I'm not entirely sure I can go from Objectify 3 to the latest version.

Also posted here...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/objectify-appengine/v_-i5gVkyz4

[Harmit Rishi (Cloud Platform Support)]

Hello Phil,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We do not currently offer a duplication feature for Cloud Platform projects. You would have to create a new project and deploy your application into this newly created project. You can do this via gcloud by following the instructions here.

The process of duplicating your current database depends on the import/export instructions offered by Google for the type of database you are using in your project. Since you are using Objectify I will assume it is Datastore. Datastore does allow importing and exporting of entities. You can find the guide how to perform this task at this following link.

Also, if you have any specific roles or service keys associated with your deployed project then you will have to duplicate that for your new project as well. For instructions on managing service accounts and how to authenticate roles for users, you can follow the Google documentation for it here.

If you are unsure about your current service accounts and keys information related to your deployed projects, you can navigate to  “IAM & admin” portion of your Cloud Console. Google offers a set of roles that project owners can assign for their App-Engine applications.

Since you said you updated the Google SDK already then it would be recommended to update to Objectify 6 (as this version uses the latest Google-provided SDK to access Datastore). The key differences between Objectify 5 & 6 are listed on their GitHub link as well as how to upgrade between the versions.

Note: It is also important to mention that Objectify 6 supports Java 8 and does not support Java 7 runtime. If you are running Java 7 runtime it would be better to upgrade to Objectify 5  but I will mention that Java 7 is getting deprecated.