How to migrate between SMAs (4360462)

It may become necessary to move the current KACE SMA database and files to a different appliance.  Some example scenarios include:

• Migrating from an virtual old/small template to a newer/bigger one. See here for more info.
• Migrating from an physical SMA to virtual SMA.
• Migrating between different Virtual platforms: KACE as a Service, Hyper-V, VMWare, Azure, Nutanix. Documentation on setup on each platform is available here.

Steps to migrate:

• A new set of backups must be created and moved out of the physical appliance, via FTP, make sure that the FTP access to the appliance is enabled and writable. This option is available on

Settings | Control Panel | Security Settings |Select "Enable backup via FTP" | Select "Make FTP writable" | Set an FTP user password, and take note of it

When transferring the backup files over FTP, use any ftp client like Filezilla or WinSCP. The transfer type must be set to "Binary" and FTP (port 21) needs to be specified before connecting. The username will be "kbftp".

Additional information about this process cab be found in the article How to manage backup files via FTP

• The license of the current appliance must be available, this can be found opening the console and browsing to

Settings | Appliance Updates | "License Information".

Note: This license is going to be needed to setup the new virtual appliance.

• Download the OVF or Hyper-V template file from the Quest Support Site to create the new virtual appliance. It must match the version of the current physical appliance. The backups will only work on the same exact version on both physical and virtual appliances. If the exact version is not available, please contact support.
• Instructions to setup the new virtual machine can be found on the link below. There are two different guides for either Hyper-V or VMWare.
  
  Selecting the Drop-down will select the current version of the appliance and the platform to use. The new created virtual machine must follow the recommended "Host system requirements", which is also listed on the Technical Documents.
  Recommended Virtual Appliance Configuration for Scalability
  
  Additional settings to take in consideration when using Hyper-V
  
  Once the virtual machine is up and running, the initial setup of the appliance with general information is the next step:
• How to: Configure initial network settings manually.  As of version 12.0, there's an option to upload backups right after the initial setup, so that they can be restored from, and optionally to Override Network Configuration. More info available on this Video on Timestamp 15:10. If this method is not used, follow the next steps
• Once the virtual appliance is up and running, login to the Web UI enable the FTP to allow the transfer of the backups of the physical appliance to the virtual one. The process is similar to the one followed to retrieve the backups from the physical appliance.

NOTE: Again, the transfer type of the FTP operation must be set to "Binary".

• Once the transfer is done the physical appliance must be turned off or the network settings must be modified to avoid conflicts between the two of them since network configuration will be the same once the backup files are restored, unless Override Network Settings is done upon restore.
  To restore the backups go to Settings | Backup settings. Select the backups and select "Restore from backups".
• Once the backup restoration process is finished, the virtual appliance will contain the exact same information of the physical one, including the host name and the IP address, this means the agents should connect to the new appliance automatically. If the Override is used, then agents will be directed to connect to the new address of the Virtual SMA.
• A period of time to confirm the success migration is recommended, to test the virtual machine that all the information is available. Physical appliance should be kept for some time in case its information is needed.

Starting on version 13.1, backup restore process has an additional step which requires the serial number of the SMA the backups were created from. More Details are explained in 4370981.

Note: If further assistance or information in regards to the migration process is required, please contact support.