Migration planning

System migration

During a system migration, you are copying the configuration of one PME system to another PME system on a different computer. Both PME systems are the same version. Before you can migrate an existing system, you must first install the new version of PME on the new computer, following the new system install procedures. The Configuration Manager tool that is used to help with the migration only supports the migration of the PME version it was built for. For example Configuration Manager 2023 can only be used to migrate PME 2023 systems. Example applications for system migrations include off-site configuration, and computer hardware upgrades.

TIP: You can use the system migration workflow to rename your PME server computer. To do this, save the configuration with Configuration Manager, uninstall PME, rename the server, re-install PME, write the configuration with Configuration Manager.

Prerequisites

To plan for the migration of the software, review all relevant sections in the Plan chapter of this guide. In particular, review the sections on system architecture, client types, IT requirements, licensing, cybersecurity, and deployment considerations. Also review the Install and Upgrade chapter which provides details on the migration work-flow.

Windows Integrated Authentication for SQL Server

NOTE: Windows Integrated Authentication is not supported for PME systems with Secondary Servers.

PME can be installed with either SQL Server Authentication or Windows Integrated Authentication for SQL database server access.

SQL Server Authentication

This is the traditional way of installing PME with database access through both Windows accounts and SQL user accounts. With SQL Server Authentication, the PME installer creates a number of SQL accounts and a Windows account during the installation of the software. These accounts are then used during operation to access the databases. See SQL Server accounts for details on which accounts are created.

Windows Integrated Authentication

With Windows Integrated Authentication PME uses a Windows account, instead of the SQL accounts, to access the SQL server databases. You must create this Windows account before installing the software and provide account details during the installation. The Windows account must have the required access permissions to the SQL Server database. See Windows accounts for account details. See Before migrating the software and After migrating the software for more information on Windows Integrated Authentication requirements.

NOTE: When PME is installed with Windows Integrated Authentication, the Windows account that is used to access the database is also used to run the PME services and the IIS Application Pools.

Cybersecurity

Review the cybersecurity information. See Cybersecurity for details.