You install and configure switch data sources when you install ATG Service using CIM.

Switch deployment deploys updated assets to off-line areas, and then swaps these with assets on the live site as a single transaction. Production sites, for both Knowledge Manager and Self Service, should always use switch deployment. ATG Service components are configured to use switch deployment by default.

All ATG Service versioned repositories should use a target with a switched data sources:

/atg/svc/ServiceRepository
/atg/svc/ServiceSegmentRepository
/atg/svc/option/OfferRepository

ServiceSwitchingDataSource_production is the switching data source that always points to the offline production data source. The repository components used by deployment to deploy solutions and other versioned data to production are configured to use this data source. This data source is used exclusively by Knowledge Manager and exclusively for publishing deployment.

ServiceSwitchDataSource_read is the switching data source that always points to the live production data source. The repository components used by both Knowledge Manager and Self Service to read production data for use in the applications are configured to use this data source.

For more information about switch deployment, see the ATG Content Administration Programming Guide.