Sitecore Reverse Proxy (8.1 → 10.4) – Part 1: Installing the ARR Module

Recently, we had a situation where we needed to migrate a project from an older Sitecore version, 8.1, to Sitecore 10.4. We had already started development when, after some time, the client decided it was important for at least the homepage to go live on the new Sitecore 10.4 instance, while the rest of the pages would continue to be served from the old Sitecore instance — all under the same domain.

Technically, this meant running two Sitecore instances in parallel: the client would continue content authoring on their existing old Sitecore instance, while development continued on the new Sitecore 10.4 instance.

This approach would allow the client to run their marketing campaign for the new site without waiting for the full migration to complete. After considering a few different approaches, we concluded that a reverse proxy would solve the problem — serving the homepage from Sitecore 10.4 and the rest of the pages from the old Sitecore instance.

Let's look at how this can be achieved.

To set up the reverse proxy, the first thing we used was the ARR (Application Request Routing) IIS module. Here are the steps for configuring it.

• Go to the following link and download the ARR module for IIS
• Make sure the URL Rewrite module is already installed; if not, download the module from this link and install to IIS
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Once the ARR module is installed, double-click on the module in IIS and open "Server Proxy Settings"
• Select the following options if they aren't already selected, and leave the rest as is.
• Enable Proxy
• Reverse rewrite host in response headers
  
  
  
  
  

Now that the reverse proxy module is installed, let's see how to enable the reverse proxy so the homepage is served from Sitecore 10.4 while the rest of the pages continue to be served from the old Sitecore instance, all under the same domain.

Part 2

Part 3

Let's learn and grow together, happy programming 😊