Planning your environment migration to SaaS
BMC Helix Data Manager is a high-performance data migration tool that leverages the power of RDBMS systems to enable fast and efficient data migrations of BMC Helix ITSM systems.
To best take advantage of BMC Helix Data Manager, it is essential that the architecture is configured correctly to optimize data throughput and minimize the impact to your infrastructure and network.
The BMC Helix Data Manager architecture is designed to be:
- Flexible—BMC Helix Data Manager has a three-tier architecture that you can install in a variety of configurations to suit the security and infrastructure practices of your organization. For example, you can install it on a laptop or fully integrate it in your data center.
- Secure—BMC Helix Data Manager has multiple security features designed to ensure that it can operate even in security-hardened environments. With password encryption, a robust user-permission model, and secure database access control, BMC Helix Data Manager ensures that your organization's security model is enforced.
- Low impact—BMC Helix Data Manager does not require any changes to your existing BMC Helix ITSM applications, and it does not change any workflow or the data structure of the applications. The BMC Helix Data Manager user interface is completely standalone, avoiding logistical complexity during upgrades and migrations.
On-premises architecture
Four key architecture components are required to support data migration from the customer's on-premises ITSM instance.
Component | Summary |
|---|---|
BMC Helix Data Manager On Premises | You can install BMC Helix Data Manager components on a single Windows machine. This machine needs connectivity to the source database and the file system. To avoid any clashes with Java versions and other software, we recommend that the machine is standalone. |
Source database | To migrate data, BMC Helix Data Manager exports directly from the database. It does not require an AR System Server connected to this database. BMC Helix Data Manager is fast at exporting data, but this places a load on the database. Temporary database tables are created and require additional space. We recommend that you restore an overnight backup of the production system to a separate database server from which BMC Helix Data Manager can extract to the file system. The database must be read/write to enable BMC Helix Data Manager to create the temporary database tables. To set up this configuration, replicate the production database to the development environment. |
File system | BMC Helix Data Manager exports data to a file system. The file system must have enough space to accommodate the export of the entire database. We recommend taking the existing size of the database on disk plus approximately 20% headroom. The faster the disks underpinning the file system, the faster the export will be. The file system should be local to the BMC Helix Data Manager VM if possible because network round trips can impact the performance of data export. |
FTP connectivity to BMC Service Management Cloud | The data files that BMC Helix Data Manager exports are transferred to BMC Helix ITSM by way of FTP. It should be possible to transfer the exported files from the file system to a location where they can then be FTP transferred. Additionally, configuration data must be able to be transferred between the on-premises and cloud instances of BMC Helix Data Manager. It should be possible to transfer configuration files between these two machines. |
BMC Helix ITSM architecture
In common with the majority of on-premises systems, the customer will use the following systems on BMC Helix ITSM after go-live:
- Development
- QA
- Production
Before these systems go live on BMC Helix ITSM, you can use them in any way to facilitate the most efficient, cost-effective, and high-quality migration. For the duration of onboarding the customer, these systems are supplemented with an onboarding machine, which hosts the following components:
- MS SQL Server hosting the development database
- BMC Helix Data Manager
- File system for importing data files and hosting database backups
Following is a logical diagram of this architecture.
File transfer using MFT
Data files that BMC Helix Data Manager exports from the on-premises system are uploaded to the managed file transfer (MFT) services via FTP. The files are transferred from the MFT file system by using a Windows file copy to the onboarding machine.
Verify with BMC SaaS Operations that the upload limits are appropriate for the size of the data files you will be sending to BMC Helix ITSM. Exceeding your agreed upload limits might lock the MFT account.
API connectivity
To manage the building of SLM and Approval workflow, BMC Helix Data Manager is enabled to connect to the AR System server in the development system.
Staging server configuration
BMC SaaS Operations deploys the staging server with the following configuration:
Component | Details |
|---|---|
RAM | 24-32 GB |
CPU | 4 |
Disk | In line with the thin-provision approach used for BMC Helix ITSM deployments, the initial disk allocation will be for the minimal amount necessary. The BMC Helix Data Manager environment is virtual, and additional disk is deployed within 48 hours of a request for additional space. The initial minimal disk sizing is based on the following formulas: For BMC Helix Data Manager import files: Size of on-premises database x 120% This allows two full exports of the production system to be uploaded to the Cloud. For database backups: Size of on-premises database x 200% This allows ~2 full backups of a fully migrated database to be held at one time. For example, an on-premises database of 400 GB would look like this: For BMC Helix Data Manager import files: 400 GB * 120% = 480 GB For database backups: 400 GB * 200% = 800 GB Total: 1280 GB |