"},{"ID":313692,"user_firstname":"Maggie","user_lastname":"Rizvi","nickname":"Maggie Busek","user_nicename":"mbusek","display_name":"Maggie Busek","user_email":"mbusek@esri.com","user_url":"","user_registered":"2022-06-24 20:52:17","user_description":"ArcGIS Enterprise Product Manager","user_avatar":"
"}],"short_description":"Explore common ArcGIS Enterprise migration workflows, available migration tools, and key considerations for different migration scenarios","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"As an ArcGIS Enterprise user, you may have evolving business or organizational needs that require migration. Migration can mean many things in the world of ArcGIS Enterprise. Maybe you need to move to new infrastructure, from on-premises to the cloud or from one deployment option to another. Beyond full environment migration, you also may need to migrate individual pieces of content in promotion workflows, moving from pre-production environments, such as development or staging, to production environments. You might even want to migrate between products, from ArcGIS Online to ArcGIS Enterprise or vice versa.<\/p>\n
As you might be thinking, migration can be an intricate process to not only define but also think through. This ArcGIS Enterprise blog will walk you through common migration workflows, available tools and approaches for migrating, and benefits and considerations for certain tools depending on your migration scenario. This blog will also help guide you through key questions to think through as you prepare for a migration and choose the right approach for your needs. We will close with some example migration scenarios to put together everything we’ve covered. Now let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","content":"
Jump to: Common migration workflows<\/a> | Choosing your migration approach<\/a> | Common questions to ask to determine the right migration path<\/a> | Examples of common migration scenarios and recommended approaches<\/a><\/p>\n","image_reference":false,"layout":"standard","image_reference_figure":"","snippet":"","spotlight_name":"","section_title":"","position":"Center","spotlight_image":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":" <\/p>\n So, you know you need to do an ArcGIS Enterprise migration, but what does that actually mean for you? To start, a key differentiator you can consider for your migration is whether it will be a full environment migration or will be a migration of specific content or workflows. Beyond these ArcGIS Enterprise-specific migrations, you may even need to migrate between ArcGIS products for changing organizational needs. Let\u2019s walk through some common migration scenarios in these two categories to figure out which workflow you will be going through.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Moving ArcGIS Enterprise to new infrastructure:<\/span> Your organization may need to move your existing ArcGIS Enterprise deployment to new infrastructure. This could be for a variety of reasons, such as:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Moving between ArcGIS Enterprise deployment options:<\/span> ArcGIS Enterprise has three deployment options: Windows, Linux, and Kubernetes. <\/span>There may be cases in which you originally installed your ArcGIS Enterprise using one deployment <\/span>option<\/span> but need to move to another because of changing business needs. <\/span>In some cases, your<\/span> IT team <\/span>may be<\/span> focused on deploying other cloud-native software and wants to use ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes after historically being on Windows or Linux.<\/span> In other cases, there may be<\/span> more <\/span>expertise<\/span> for supporting software on Linux<\/span>,<\/span> so you want to move your deployment originally installed on Windows.<\/span> <\/span>A<\/span>gain<\/span>,<\/span> in this case, you are moving your entire ArcGIS Enterprise deployment. <\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":" 1. Content promotion workflows:<\/span> Your organization may have designated pre-production environments for testing, development, and quality assurance purposes. As a result, you may need to migrate content across pre-production and production environments. In content promotion scenarios, you are typically migrating only individual items or groups of items at a time. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Sharing content for projects and collaboration:<\/span> Your organization may have multiple ArcGIS Enterprise environments to support your work. You may need to share content between these environments for projects or various types of work. You may also have multiple teams or groups using different ArcGIS Enterprise environments that need to share content for collaboration. In these scenarios, you need to migrate individual items or groups of items to achieve your work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Moving from ArcGIS Online to ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Enterprise to ArcGIS Online or vice versa:<\/span> ArcGIS Online provides the same foundational mapping, visualization, spatial analysis, and collaboration tools as ArcGIS Enterprise. The core distinction is that ArcGIS Online is a SaaS (software-as-a-service) product and ArcGIS Enterprise is a self-hosted software. In some cases, your business needs around security, connecting to data in place, and extensibility options may change, requiring you to move from ArcGIS Online to ArcGIS Enterprise. <\/span>Because this is a migration to a new product, you will choose the users, content, and workflows you want to move depending on your business needs. <\/span><\/b>Because ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online are distinct products, there will be some nuance between your previous and new environments.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","content":" One other workflow you may hear mentioned <\/span>in conjunction with the<\/span> word <\/span>\u201c<\/span>migration<\/span>\u201d <\/span>is <\/span>in <\/span>scenarios of moving to <\/span>more modern application versions. <\/span>ArcGIS <\/span>Enterprise provides access to a full suite of applications.<\/span> These applications evolve over time to provide new functionality, improved performance, and better user experience. In some cases, certain applications may retire and be replaced by modern successors, requiring you to rebuild items<\/span> originally built with the retiring applications.<\/span> A recent example is the retirement of ArcGIS Web <\/span>AppBuilder<\/span> starting with ArcGIS Enterprise 12.0 requiring a <\/span>transition <\/span>of ArcGIS <\/span><\/span>Web <\/span>AppBuilder <\/span>apps to ArcGIS Experience Builder. <\/span>This transition requires a rebuilding of items on an individual basis. With this process, you will be migrating to a newer application, but it is important to consider that manual rebuilding work may be part of this process and should be thought of as distinct from our migration workflows defined above.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It is key to understand which migration workflow you are planning for as that will inform the approaches and tools that are best suited to your project.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image_reference":false,"layout":"standard","image_reference_figure":"","snippet":"","spotlight_name":"","section_title":"","position":"Center","spotlight_image":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":" <\/p>\n After <\/span>you\u2019ve<\/span> determined<\/span> which migration workflow you are targeting, you need to <\/span>determine<\/span> which approach is the best fit. ArcGIS Enterprise offers a variety of tools that can be used for migration, and it is important to understand the benefits and considerations of different approaches. <\/span>Let\u2019s<\/span> look at common tools used for migration and which situations they may be most useful for. <\/span>We will walk through what each tool is, the potential migration use cases, the benefits of this approach, and potential limitations to be aware of.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":" 1. WebGISDR:<\/span> The WebGISDR tool is intended to be a disaster recovery tool. The tool allows you to back up your entire ArcGIS Enterprise deployment on Windows and Linux and restore that backup to a new environment. Although it is intended as a disaster recovery tool, you may <\/span>consider using it for your migration in certain situations<\/span><\/a>. Because the tool allows you to backup and restore your full ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, it can be a good fit for when you are fully migrating to new infrastructure.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Join Site operation:<\/span> The Join Site operation in the ArcGIS Server and Portal for ArcGIS components is usually used for high availability and disaster workflows to add a standby machine to your ArcGIS Server site. This approach can also be used <\/span>replace a machine in your deployment for the purposes of migration<\/span><\/a> without losing content or interrupting service. This approach will be done on a machine-by-machine basis.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Export and import group content:<\/span> This function allows administrators to export items shared with a group to an export package (.epk) and use the package to import the items into groups in the same or different organizations. In the case of migrations, this can be a valuable tool to move content in bulk from one environment to another.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Distributed collaboration:<\/span> Distributed collaboration allows the sharing of select content between ArcGIS Enterprise environments or an ArcGIS Enterprise and an ArcGIS Online organization. These environments could be internal to your business or organization, or this could be used to share content with externally with trusted partners. One common use case for distributed collaboration is repeated content migration workflows and migration of content between ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3. Scripting migration using the ArcGIS API for Python:<\/span> The ArcGIS API for Python is a powerful Pythonic library that can support a variety of activities for users of ArcGIS Enterprise. One common use case is scripting migration workflows using the ArcGIS API for Python this is effective for moving content across environments.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rebuilding instead of using available migration tools: <\/span><\/b>Rebuilding is an alternative approach to migration. In this case, you are choosing to rebuild content or environments instead of migrating existing items or configurations. This approach can be taken when you are opting to start from scratch with a new environment and want to clean up potentially bloated content or configurations. You may also need to migrate if existing content types are being retired in a new version of software, requiring you to build a new alternative with modern offerings.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now that we understand our different migration options, their common use cases, and their benefits and limitations, let\u2019s think through some common questions to consider to determine which migration approach may be the best fit for your situation.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To put together everything we covered in the blog, let\u2019s go through some example migration scenarios and which migration approach is likely the best fit.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Example scenario:<\/span><\/b> Today, I have a deployment of ArcGIS Enterprise 12.1 on Windows. I want to migrate my entire existing deployment of ArcGIS Enterprise onto new infrastructure. The new machines will be on a new operating system version, but I will stay on Windows and on ArcGIS Enterprise 12.1.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nCommon migration workflows<\/b><\/h1>\n
Full environment migrations:<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Specific content, user, or workflow migrations:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Moving between ArcGIS products:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Choosing your migration approach<\/b><\/h1>\n
Approaches for full environment migrations:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Approaches for specific content, user, or workflow migrations:<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Common questions to ask to determine the right path<\/b><\/h1>\n
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Example common migration scenarios and recommended approaches<\/b><\/h1>\n