Migration process for Remedyforce to BMC Helix Innovation Suite Cloud

While your BMC Helix environments are being activated, download and install the latest version of Developer Studio on your Remedyforce system:

• Developer studio

Configuring SAML:

We recommend that you create a realm for SAML authentication, and configure the general details for the realm. Obtain the necessary information from the IdP administrator and then configure SAML authentication.

For more information, see  Importing configuration from an identity provider and configuring SAML .

Configuring Active Directory:

After you configure BMC Helix SSO as a service provider and Active Data Federation Services (AD FS) as the remote identity provider (IdP) in BMC Helix SSO Admin Console, you can configure SAML for AD FS.

For more information, see  Configuring Active Directory Federation Services as a SAML identity provider .

Create a lifecycle request to have the external authentication configured with one of your preferred authentication sources:

• Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) V2.0 using Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) 2.0 or 3.0
• SAML V2.0 using a third-party product (for example, Ping Identity, Shibboleth, and so on).

For more information, see the following links in the BMC Helix Subscriber documentation:

• Authentication integration
• Creating a lifecycle request for requesting services 

Create a lifecycle request for an additional permanent FTP setup to transfer data related to integrations.

For the lifecycle request for File Transfer Directory, select your environment from the list.

For more information, see the following links in the BMC Helix Subscriber documentation:

• File transfer process
• Creating a lifecycle request for requesting services 

Perform custom development work needed for:

• AR System Server
• BMC Helix ITSM
• BMC Helix Digital Workplace
• BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog
• BMC Helix ITSM: Smart IT
• BMC Helix Dashboards

You can integrate the BMC Helix ITSM system with your existing Remedyforce integrations that are supported in BMC Helix version 21.3. These integrations can include BMC TrueSight Operations Management, BMC Helix Discovery, and so on.

• For integrations that require client gateway (Support tickets)
  Create a support ticket to configure the ports for your integrations. You can create single or multiple tickets depending on the integration information available. The BMC team configures the ports for your integrations.
• To configure the BMC Change and Configuration Management (CCM) integration, use Atrium integrated jobs. 
• Integrate BMC Helix Discovery with BMC Helix by using the BMC gateway, or purchase BMC Helix Discovery and integrate it with BMC Helix.
  For more information about integrating BMC Helix Discovery, see BMC Helix Discovery activation.
• Other BMC Helix applications
  • BMC Helix products are available for customers to purchase. These services can be integrated with BMC Helix Innovation Suite.
    For more information see:

• • • BMC Virutal Chat
    • Installing BMC Service Resolution for TrueSight Infrastructure Management or ProactiveNet
    • Installing BMC Atrium Core Web Services components
    • BMC Atrium CMDB extensions overview
    • BMC Atrium CMDB SCCM Adapter guide
    • BMC Helix Client Management service

For more information about the available products, see Integrations. 

Create deployment packages and request database backup with customizations and integrations

Create a support ticket to have Golden Backup 1: Customizations/Fixes No Data.

This backup is your Golden Backup #1 with the base data and customizations and integration information.

Best Practice:
We recommend that you create a package with all your customizations and fixes. For more information about using Developer Studio to create a package, see  Defining and deploying data and object packages in AR System documentation.

Load the data from the dataload spreadsheets into the BMC Helix Innovation Suite Cloud system by using the Data Management Console:

1. Open the Data Management Console.
2. Create a new job.
3. Select the company.
4. Select the OOTB templates.
5. In the Load step, attach the dataload spreadsheets created in Stage 5.
6. In the Validate step, enable the Create Only flag for all the Foundation and CMDB data.
7. Save the job.

8. On the Promote step for dataload job, enable the Enable Wait option.

   Warning

   • After you load all the Foundation data into the target forms, you cannot modify the data.
   • You must enable the Enable Wait option on the Promote step of the data load job. This option loads the data into the load forms and not directly to the target forms. You can review and validate the data by using this option. After you modify or confirm the data, disable the Enable Wait option to promote the data to the target forms. 
   • If you want to modify the Foundation data and you have not enabled the Enable Wait option, and the data is pushed to target, and then you have to delete the data and run the dataload job again.
   • You can modify the People data in the People spreadsheets. However, to modify the people record, create a new spreadsheet with new details, and run the dataload job.

9. Perform these steps for each dataload spreadsheet.

10. Run the job.

We recommendation to run a job with Enable Wait set on the promote step and to validate the data in the load form. This helps you review the data in the load form so you can determine the data you want to  promote to the target form.

If the data is not accurate, then you can simply fix the spreadsheets and  run a new job to load the data the same way to the load form and the data will not be duplicated as each data loaded will have a job ID reference. Therefore, you can run multiple jobs to load corrected data to the same form multiple times without worrying about duplicate data and/or cleaning up the data. This is only possible if you run the job with the Enable Wait set to promote step.

After you have done a few revisions as needed with the above approach and the data for that form in your spreadsheet is accurate then that is considered as your Golden Spreadsheet for that form and now you will create a new job to load that data to the target form without setting Enable Wait on the promote step.

We recommend creating Golden Spreadsheet for all your forms.

Use the Golden Spreadsheets to run jobs and load data to the QA and/or production environments as needed. This is also helpful if you revert your database to an earlier state.

Important:

If you run a job without setting the Enable Wait parameter on the Promote step and the data is already in the target forms, then if you need to correct the data, revert back to Golden backup 1 described in the Step 3 of Stage 3.

For detailed steps about crating and running the dataload jobs, see Data creation and updates using a dataload job .

If you want to correct or modify the CMDB data after you have already loaded data in CMDB forms, we recommend you to run a purge reconciliation job first to delete the data and run a new job to load the corrected data.

For information about purging CIs that are not required in any dataset, see Deleting CIs from a dataset by using the Delete activity in BMC Helix CMDB documentation.

Create a ticket to create Golden Backup #2 after the successful load of your Foundation and CMDB data.

You are now ready to unit test your migration.

Before you begin the unit testing, make sure the following tasks are completed:

• All development tasks including:
  
  • Creation of deployable data packages with issue fixes and database backup with the migrated data
• Initial data load/onboarding.

Complete the following steps to complete unit testing:

1. Disable the Quiet mode on the development server.
2. Perform unit testing on the development server.
3. Fix any functional issues.
   Important: Make sure you maintain a record of the fixes made during the unit testing.
4. For Action Request System (AR System) objects, use the Deployment console to export and create the packages. 
5. After you complete unit testing, create a support ticket to restore to Golden Backup #2 in Quiet mode.
6. Apply the fixes found during unit testing.
7. Create a support ticket to replace the existing Golden Backup #2 and restart the system in Quiet mode.
8. After completing the unit testing, create a support ticket to restore Golden Backup #2 to your BMC Helix QA and production environments.

Fixing issues
Use one of the following options to fix the issues that you find during your UAT cycles:

• Fix the issues on the development server and create packages of the fixes by using the Deployment Management Console. Then, import the packages to the BMC Helix QA and production environments to validate the fixes. For more information about using the Deployment Management Console to create a package, see Importing and exporting a package.
  You might need to add multiple cycles to your project plan to complete all the testing, fix all blocker issues, and get a sign-off for exiting Stage 8: User Acceptance Tests (UAT).
  
  UAT sign-off
  Perform the required number of UAT cycles for the scenarios that apply to you, and make sure all blocker issues are resolved to get a successful UAT sign-off.
  
  Important:
• Include the required number of UAT cycles in the project plan to complete testing and fixing all issues. Customers or partners must sign off on the UAT phase before moving to go-live preparation activities. 
• We recommend that you start Stage 9: Go-live activities only after a sign-off with an understanding that pending open issues will only be worked on after go-live.
• Create packages and deploy all application or environment changes found or fixes applied during any phase of the migration on all your environments. If you do not apply these changes to all environments, requests need to be created to reapply these changes after every database restore. We recommend that you track these tasks so that data from existing requests can be used as a reference for the changes to be applied.
• Create packages for all fixes developed by you or BMC.