Technical consultancy for Migration of SIMS Servers

[cathycolless]

This coming summer we plan to move our 2 SIMS servers (client and database) from Windows 2012 machines to new Win 2019 servers.

 

In the past when we did this we had assistance from a consultant from SIMS to help us move all the SIMS config across to the new servers.

This went well and was a very helpful consultancy.

 

Are there any good alternatives to asking ESS/SIMS for consultancy support ?

Is there another company that offers this type of Sever Migration Tech support for operating system changes on the servers ?

Or should I ask SIMS again as we did last time ?

 

Thank you in advance for any advice

Cathy

[mavhc]

Are they virtual machines?

[speakercon]

I'm sure School ICT would be able to help with this.

[enbiggen]

Or should I ask SIMS again as we did last time ?

 

We used ESS earlier this year and it was an exemplary service. It was £525.00, and that was cheaper than I expected, and cheaper than some of the other quotes I'd received.

[Fazza]

We used ESS to do that and it was around £500 for the whole migration including tested etc. went very smoothly.

[Koldov]

Subbed to this as I am thinking of trying to get SIMS moved from P2V in the near future... not sure if this was ever eventually fully supported by Capita, but if so I'd look into it for the Summer.

[TwistedHelixis]

ESS can supply the docs / info to do this yourself. Last time I did this, I just followed their steps and it all worked. I think they even have a migration tool for going to new server / SQL version automatically.

[ITGURU]

Always done migrations in house and rebuilt SIMS servers , if you follow their guide on the support portal, its relatively straight forward.

[mavhc]

Snapshot VM, run upgrades, if it fails, restore snapshot.

 

If it's not a VM add a step 0: make it a vm

[yac2016]

Keystone MIS should be used for Sims support and they do the migrations. Great service as well!

[Koldov]

Still looking at doing this maybe in the next half-term.

 

Unfortunately I didn't get enough answers in my other post to confidently install SQL 2016 though.

 

However, I now have the documentation and application files from ESS to proceed...

 

For those that have done this can anyone answer the following:

 

1. It says in the documentation that during the process it will "...install SQL Server 2016 Express, if required...." and that is the only mention of it I can find in the whole document. We have a license for the Standard Version so should I let it install Express and then try to upgrade that afterwards?

 

But then confusingly in the document there is a FAQ and this states "Please note that the SIMS SQL 2016 Migration Utility does not include Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express edition. Before migrating your SIMS, FMS and Discover databases to SQL Server 2016, you must first install Microsoft SQL Server 2016 or Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express and create a SIMS Instance."

 

2. There is also a mention of then having to do all the redirection "The SIMS, FMS and Discover Redirection Services cannot run when you are moving to a new server. You must now carry out the redirections and remap the Document Server manually". Am I to take it the this SIMS server migration is actually just moving the databases and attaching them them on the new server and that nothing else gets moved over at all, because it also mentions copying and pasting the Documents folder...?

 

Although in the FAQ it states:

 

The migration itself will, if possible, modify:

 the Document Server Storage Structure (the folder system is arranged by Instance name and database name).

 scheduled tasks for SIMS applications, such as AutoReports, VLE, SIMS Scheduled Tasks, B2B, DBAttach, and SOLUS, which contain correctly formatted server and database parameters in their command line parameters.

If you subscribe to the redirection service during the migration, the SIMS/FMS clients will automatically update the CONNECT.INI/FMSCONNECT.INI files with the location of the migrated database.

 

It then seems to suggest in the document this won't happen if moving to a new server...?

 

3. I can't find any application to migrate SOLUS mentioned in the document but it says "SOLUS 3.12.n.n is scheduled for release in July 2017 and will fully support SQL 2016; it contains functionality that enables you to migrate your SOLUS3 system to a new server and enables the SOLUS 3.12.n.n agents to redirect to the new server with minimal intervention." I haven't seen this in SOLUS...?

[Starbug1]

Unfortunately, ESS increased their price last year from £525 to £810.

 

Schools ICT will do it for a much reasonable £695.

 

In other news, SIMS does not currently (at least not officially) support Server 2022, but will do from the Summer 2024 release.

 

I do feel that we should get away from SIMS because it seems crazy that an OS that was released over two years ago still is not supported, and by not supporting it, this means that if we go for the server move now, we have to do another server move sooner than we should, in another few years time. I feel that hopefully it won't matter for us, as by then we will have ditched SIMS.

[Damon]

Still looking at doing this maybe in the next half-term.

 

Unfortunately I didn't get enough answers in my other post to confidently install SQL 2016 though.

 

However, I now have the documentation and application files from ESS to proceed...

 

For those that have done this can anyone answer the following:

 

1. It says in the documentation that during the process it will "...install SQL Server 2016 Express, if required...." and that is the only mention of it I can find in the whole document. We have a license for the Standard Version so should I let it install Express and then try to upgrade that afterwards?

 

But then confusingly in the document there is a FAQ and this states "Please note that the SIMS SQL 2016 Migration Utility does not include Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express edition. Before migrating your SIMS, FMS and Discover databases to SQL Server 2016, you must first install Microsoft SQL Server 2016 or Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Express and create a SIMS Instance."

 

2. There is also a mention of then having to do all the redirection "The SIMS, FMS and Discover Redirection Services cannot run when you are moving to a new server. You must now carry out the redirections and remap the Document Server manually". Am I to take it the this SIMS server migration is actually just moving the databases and attaching them them on the new server and that nothing else gets moved over at all, because it also mentions copying and pasting the Documents folder...?

 

Although in the FAQ it states:

 

The migration itself will, if possible, modify:

 the Document Server Storage Structure (the folder system is arranged by Instance name and database name).

 scheduled tasks for SIMS applications, such as AutoReports, VLE, SIMS Scheduled Tasks, B2B, DBAttach, and SOLUS, which contain correctly formatted server and database parameters in their command line parameters.

If you subscribe to the redirection service during the migration, the SIMS/FMS clients will automatically update the CONNECT.INI/FMSCONNECT.INI files with the location of the migrated database.

 

It then seems to suggest in the document this won't happen if moving to a new server...?

 

3. I can't find any application to migrate SOLUS mentioned in the document but it says "SOLUS 3.12.n.n is scheduled for release in July 2017 and will fully support SQL 2016; it contains functionality that enables you to migrate your SOLUS3 system to a new server and enables the SOLUS 3.12.n.n agents to redirect to the new server with minimal intervention." I haven't seen this in SOLUS...?

 

You should install SQL Standard first and then run the migration tool to move the databases. Migration tool can be run in lots of diff ways, I would be tempted to run it on your physical server and ask it to output to a bak (i.e. a backup) file. Then copy this over and use DBattach (need to install Sqlapplicationsetup) to bring it into the new SQL instance. You will need to copy over the DOCSTORAGE folder to the new server, reinstall the SIMS Document server services then edit the .config file to point at the new location of your Docstorage, e.g. D:\Docstorage. You then need to restart the Document Server service. When the SIMS database is attached, you can change the document server hostname in the setups menu. Lastly, go into D:\Docstorage and rename the sub folders accordingly. The structure should be pretty obvious, it's something like Hostname\instancename\databasename or something like that. Can't recall exactly as it's been a while.

 

The migration tool only covers the database side of things and runs a few SQL scripts. Redirection services are just a handy way of mopping up any workstations that haven't been correctly pointed to the new server. If you just ensure that you update the connect ini's in all relevant places then you will be fine. All they do is handle a redirect when a SIMS/FMS client tries to connect to your old server and instance. You can actually set these up yourself in SQL config manager if required.

 

 

Migrating solus is a pain in the butt. You may want to just reinstall a fresh Solus and then use the redirect option on the old server.