Overview of instance migration

Each PPM instance consists of a file system and an Oracle database, which can exist on Windows or UNIX machines. You can migrate PPM using one of the following methods:

  • Copy an entire PPM instance (server file system and database schemas) and move it to another location. If you are moving the copied instance to a different machine, you must have a new license key for it.

  • Migrate the PPM Server to a different machine, but maintain the existing database schemas. Migrating the server requires a new license key.

  • Migrate the database schemas, but maintain the existing PPM Server. Migrating only the database schema does not require a new license key.

Enterprise environments typically have multiple PPM instances (for example, development, test, and production). The following sections address the simplest multiple-instance configuration, which consists of a development instance (DEV) and a production instance (PROD). Each is set up on a different machine. You can extend the migration steps to support all of the instances used at your site.

To create additional PPM instances from an existing production (PROD) instance, clone the PROD instance.

To move from a single active instance to multiple instances:

  1. Copy the PROD instance to DEV.

    This includes the file system, database, and license information.

  2. Configure any changes to products in the DEV instance.

    This includes creating or modifying entities such as workflows, object types, request types, validations, security groups, and environments.

  3. From the PROD instance, configure a package workflow to import the configuration data from the DEV instance.

  4. Migrate data from the DEV instance into the PROD instance.

You can set up multiple instances as you first install and set up PPM. Configure one instance as the DEV instance, and the other as the PROD instance. This saves you from having to copy data from one instance into another later.

If your source machine has document management installed and integrated with PPM, see the Document Management Guide and Reference for information about how to migrate document management.