Migrator overview

Migrator automates the process of transferring objects and data from one source (server or file) to another. For example, you can develop workflow applications on a development server (source) and use Migrator to transfer them to a production server (destination), ensuring the integrity of all migrated changes.

This topic gives you an overview of Migrator. See the following topics for more information about the migration process and modes:

With Migrator, you connect to one or more AR System servers and then select a source and destination for the objects, fields, or data you are migrating. The following sections refer to two server types:

• A source server, where you modify or update your applications that are in development.
• A destination server, where users work with the current versions of your applications that are in production.

During migration, the source server should show no impact in performance. Impact to the destination server can vary from minimal to heavy, depending on the number of changes being made, the size of the objects, server speed, network bandwidth, and traffic.

You can perform migrations using either of two methods: immediate migrations or scripted migrations.

• Immediate migrations run in Migration mode.
• Scripted migrations run in Scripting mode. In this mode, you create scripts that you can save, schedule, and reuse. You can also use the Before and After commands to run a program before or after the script executes.
  To migrate objects, you select the objects you want to migrate and start the migration using menu commands or by dragging the objects to the destination server.

A migration consists of the following steps:

1. Migrator packages the selected objects.
2. Migrator expands the package and looks for join forms, table fields in forms, related objects, and required menus.
3. Migrator produces a migration results file.
4. The migration begins.

Migrator migrates the objects in a specific sequence, and then generates a migration result report. 

Migration process 

When a migration begins, Migrator retrieves the next object from the results file and compares the source object to the destination object, if any. Based on the results, Migrator performs the following actions:

• Creates the object, if it is missing, on the destination server.
• Modifies the destination server if the object is different from what is on the source server.

For Form and Related migrations, Migrator performs the following actions:

• Marks the objects to delete or disable if they are not in the source server.
• Deletes or disables all marked objects (active links, filters, or escalations) that are on the destination server.

Migrator uses a predefined sequence for migrating objects. For Regular, Join, Display-only, View, and Vendor forms, Migrator looks for the views and then the fields for each form, repeating the process if necessary before it moves on to the next object type in the sequence. The following table outlines the sequence of object migrations.