TeamSite replatforming to cloud and migration from 7.x to 16.4.1

ksn3

Hi All,

We are going with TeamSite upgrade from 7.2 to 16.4.1. This upgrade involved on-premise solution to cloud platform.

We are planning to follow a hybrid approach -

• with AWS cloud hosting
• fresh installation of TeamSite 16.4.1
• migrate existing content store to new version
  Ours is a small content with 4 GB of total data, mainly the static HTML pages.

Looking forward to get answers for the following, any pointers will be appreciable.
1) what is the best mode to migrate existing Teamsite to latest TeamSite version. - Is there any tool available to migrate Teamsite, or TeamSite documentation supporting migration to 16.4.x.?
2) For custom cloud compatibility - any one used AWS custom cloud to host TeamSite, Any challenges?
3) How complex is it to migrate to newer version - Any best practices, guidelines?
4) How much time will it take to migrate 4 GB data with all dependencies and metadata(WA)?

Thanks!

David Smith

Read through the installation documentation thoroughly before you upgrade. It sounds like if you're moving to a cloud infrastructure that you have no choice but to install the new version directly on new server(s) (I don't know anything about cloud) rather than an in-place upgrade. I am of the opinion that installing on new servers and migrating your backing store is much easier than an in-place upgrade. However, if you have customizations on your existing implementation, you need to be very careful how you migrate those to the new version. An upgrade for us is a 3-4 month project. We upgrade 6 servers (1 Dev, 2 QA, and 3 Prod) and that takes a lot of coordination and testing as many things have changed from your old version to 16.4.x. We have created a test server to install 16.4.1.1 and test prior to going full steam ahead with Dev/QA/Prod. The best way for us is to document every step of the way - this should ensure that your installs are all the same and you don't miss anything. It can be painstaking, but in the long run, it can prevent much more pain.

As far as how long it will take to copy your backing store - that all depends on your OS and what method you're using to copy the data and probably a couple other factors.

nipper

I've done this before, moved an enterprise with 80 branches from on premise Solaris servers to AWS, TS 7.3.2 up to 16.3

You will definitely need new install. I hope you have an extremely good handle on your TS configurations (I always have my configs on an administration/configuration branch). You need to be able to move those easily.

Changing hostname can bite you in the ****, if you did things incorrectly. Also, depending on your TS install location, you may have path issues (i.e. many people installed TS in /opt/iw-home or something, but now the installer forces it into .../TeamSite/). That messes up custom scripts and other code.

Experience is really the only tool you have to help. If you don't have that, then as Smitty said, practice practice, practice.

Out project was a several month migration where we moved people up in waves, it took much longer asn was a pain in the **** for me, since I had to migrate content (using iw_migrate) every weekend, but nothing could be done about that.

David Smith

@Andy Knipp said:
Changing hostname can bite you in the ****, if you did things incorrectly. Also, depending on your TS install location, you may have path issues (i.e. many people installed TS in /opt/iw-home or something, but now the installer forces it into .../TeamSite/). That messes up custom scripts and other code.

When you say "forces you to use /TeamSite/" - what do you mean specifically? I am able to set the root of the install () always to /opt/foo/bar (even in 16.4.x), but I also always use the GUI installer where I know you use silent. Regardless, TeamSite has always been one of the webapps that gets installed , so there has always been a /TeamSite, as well as /ApplicationContainer, etc. Or are you saying the silent installer forces your root path to include "TeamSite"?

nipper

I mean that if I used /opt/iw-home, then TS was installed in there (so the path is /opt/iw-home/bin/iwsomecommand), but after 7.X, if you specfied /opt/iw-home then TS would be in /opt/iw-home/TeamSite/ and the command would be /opt/iw-home/TeamSite/bin/iwsomecommand.

For implementations that started in the 4.x/5.x range this is pretty common.

ArunWesley

@Andy Knipp @ksn3

Hope the AWS TeamSite installation is completed. Can you please share the high level steps?

Currently we are on Linux on prem 16.4.1 and plan to migrate to Google Cloud. GCP?