Migrating Installation and Data to a New Server

When migrating Project Insight to a new server, it is important to note that the data is contained in two locations and formats:

• The Project Insight database in Microsoft SQL Server
• The files users have uploaded, which have a default location as sub folders within the \Inetpub\Project Insight\Sites\Files folder location

Here's how you do it:

1. Backup the production database for use as a test database during the new installation
2. Optional if test users expect to see files download from the application while in the testing phase is to copy of all of the files from the \Inetpub\Project Insight\Sites\Files (default) location for placement in the new installation folder of the same path
3. Follow the instructions for a complete, new installation of the latest version of Project Insight on the new server with the following substitutions and exceptions
• Restore the backup of the database from production instead of using the database provided to you by Project Insight. You may need to delete the Project Insight user for the database and add it back in to make sure it is the correct user for this new database and not the backed up user from the production database. Set up of this user is covered in the installation instructions.
• Turn off or do not start the Project Insight Windows Services. Change the service to manually start instead of automatic. We do not want these services to start at any time during testing because it will send out email notifications based on data from a backup database, which would be confusing for the email recipients.
• Optionally copy the ...\Sites\Files folder data into the new server in the corresponding location
4. Provide users with a temporary URL to access and test the new server installation. This testing is often two-fold for testing a new release and the new server environment. It is most common that the migration takes place as an upgrade because the current server is frequently not as recent as the most recent version of Project Insight
5. Upon completion of testing and acceptance by the users, we are ready to schedule the downtime required to fully convert users to the new server environment

---All of the above steps take place without downtime for the system users---

6. Stop the Project Insight Web site in both the current production and the new server environments
7. Stop the Project Insight Windows Service in the production server and set the service to Manual to prevent it from starting again
8. If you chose the option to test with the uploaded files on the test server, delete all of the files in the ...\Sites\Files folder
9. Backup the production database
10. Restore the production database as an overwrite to the new server database. You may need to delete the Project Insight user for the database and add it back in to make sure it is the correct user for this new database and not the backed up user from the production database. Set up of this user is covered in the installation instructions
11. Copy the files in the ...\Sites\Files folder from the production server to the new server in the corresponding location
12. Run the configuration wizard for the Project Insight web application. This configuration wizard will go through most of the same configuration prompts and steps as the original installation
13. Start the Project Insight Web site on your new server
14. Start the Project Insight Windows Service on the new server and set the configuration of the service to Automatic
15. Direct all production URLs to the new server, which is now your production server

If your Project Insight has custom branding (logo, colors, icons, etc.) you will need to copy the branding assets from the production server to the new server prior to initial testing. The default location for the branding assets is \Inetpub\Project Insight\Sites\GI.

In order to prevent users from accidentally accessing the now-retired old server, it is recommended that all Project Insight programs get uninstalled immediately from that server. It's OK to keep the old files copied from that server as well as the backup of the database for safekeeping. If something were to go wrong you can bring it back up to the state it was in prior to the migration. Just make sure you have the database backup, files and those previous Project Insight version installation files so that you can re-install the previous version to its state prior to the migration.