Migration best practices

The basic principle of data management through an upgrade is that data should be mastered (changed) in only one location at one time. Until you move to the new production system, the master for your data is the current production system.

Where possible, migrate all data in one operation during the cutover window by using BMC Helix Data Manager, and perform the postmigration actions during the cutover. (This might not be practical depending on your configuration, data volumes, or business requirements for outage.)

If you need to migrate data into your target system prior to the cutover, make sure that data is being changed only in your current production system.

When an AR System server is running, it automatically runs escalations and timed actions to update the data in your system. To prevent AR System servers from updating and effectively corrupting the data in your future production system, you can:

• Keep all transaction data out of the target database until the cutover
• Do not turn on any AR System servers until the cutover
• Control the behavior of AR System servers with special configuration and selective data migration (Change the AR System server's mode to Operating mode.)

Configuring an AR System server for Operating mode

An AR System server has the following modes:

Mode	Description
Normal	Scheduled processes change the data. Never enable this mode on a system with migrated data until cutover, or unless you have a "Gold" backup taken prior to starting the AR System server.
Operating	Operating mode prevents all external and scheduled processes from being run. Use this if you need to import workflow to resolve defects.

To place the server in Operating mode

1. Stop the AR System server.
2. Create a copy of the existing ar.cfg and armonitor.cfg  files with the names  ar.cfg.loud and  armonitor.cfg.loud.
3. Create a copy of the existing ar.cfg and armonitor.cfg  files with the names  ar.cfg.operating and  armonitor.cfg.operating.
4. Modify the ar.cfg.operating file with the following setting:
   Operating-Mode: 1
5. Modify the ar.monitor.operating file to disable all processes, except the AR Server process, by adding a # at the beginning of each line except the AR System server, for example:
   "X:\BMCPrereqs\Java-64\jre\bin\java" -jar "x:\bmcsoftware\bmcarsystem\arserver.jar" –unicode -i "x:\bmcsoftware\bmcarsystem" -l "x:\Program files\common files\ar system\licenses\xxxx" -m
6. Start the AR System server.

To reduce your cutover window by building workflow for SLA configuration prior to the cutover

1. Shut down the AR System servers.
2. Use the SLA Configuration runtime template to migrate only the SLM configuration data.
3. Start the AR System servers in Operating mode.
4. Build the workflow by using BMC Helix Data Manager.
5. Shut down the AR System server.
6. Convert the AR System server configuration to Operating mode.
7. Migrate transactional data by using the All Data excluding SLM Configuration runtime template.
   Building SLM  configuration with transactional data in your system will effectively   corrupt   your data by allowing the AR System server to make changes to live transactional data.
   Contact BMC Support for help in planning your cutover migrations.