Improving upgrade and migration performance
Article ID: 20337
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
When doing an upgrade and migration of SDM to a new version, many times the data migration portion of the process takes an exorbitant amount of time. This document explains what can be done to help cut down on the time it takes to do the data migration and complete your upgrade.
Environment
Service Desk Manager 12.x, 14.1 and 17.x
All Supported Operating and Database Management Systems
Resolution
Support highly recommends using Archive / Purge Rules prior to the upgrade to reduce table clutter.
Many customers have been running SDM for a long time in their environment, but have never used the Archive/Purge functions within the product to help maintain a manageable database size. This may sometimes lead to a large number of records, and very large database sizes - making the migration portion of an upgrade to take a much longer time to complete.
Out of the box, SDM has several pre-configured Archive and Purge rules already in place, but by default, they are set to inactive. These rules can be activated and used to Archive or Purge data from the product, helping to reduce the size of your database, thus cutting the time it takes for the data migration part of an upgrade to complete.
There are a number of options available with this functionality:
Archive - extracts the records, based on your filters and specifications in the archive/purge rule, into a file that you can then store somewhere if needed for future reference. After extracting those records, it will then remove them from the database.
Purge - simply removes the records based on your filters and specifications in the archive/purge rule without extracting them to a file first. (NOTE: This is not reversible if this option is used)
To use the Archive and Purge functionality, log into Service Desk Manager as an administrator, and navigate to the Administration tab, then go to the Archive and Purge section. Here, you can either use the out-of-the-box Archive and Purge rules, or create your own new Archive and Purge rules based on your business needs. To use the out-of-the-box Archive and Purge rules, you simply have to search for the inactive ones, and then edit the one you want to use, and set it to active. Remember its always best to edit the fields on the rule first, then activate it as it could run right away as soon as its made active depending on how its configured.
To edit or define Archive and Purge rules to make them Archive and/or Purge only the data you specifically want it to, you can edit the rule by setting the following fields:
Rule Name
(Required) Specifies a unique identifier for the rule. Can be up to 30 alphanumeric characters.
Status
(Required) Indicates whether this rule is Active or Inactive.
Schedule
Specifies a workshift in which the rule should be in effect. Workshifts are defined by the Administrator.
Recurrence Interval
Specifies how often this rule is run, in the format hours:minutes:seconds (HH:MM:SS).
Archive File Name
Specifies the name of the file where you want the out-dated records stored. Its location is controlled by the NX_RULE_ARCHIVE_PATH variable stored in the NX.env file. Archive data files can be restored to the database using the PDM_LOAD utility.
Operation Type
Specifies one of the following types of operation that the rule should execute:
Archive/Purge
Purges outdated records from the database that are written to the file specified in the Archive File Name field.
Purge Only
Purges outdated records from the database, but they are not written to the archive file.
Archive Only (Test Run)
Writes outdated records to the archive file without purging them from the database. Use this option to test a newly created or edited archive and purge rule.
Config. Object Name
Specifies the name of the database object this rule can archive and purge.
Object Name
(Read-only) Populates your selection in the Config. Object Name field automatically.
Days Inactive
Specifies the number of days a record is inactive to be eligible for archive and purge from the database.
Additional Query
Archives and purges specific inactive records among the existing inactive records. Use this field when you want to create different rules for archiving and purging the subsets of expired records for the same object. Use the same syntax as you use for stored queries.
Examples of specific Additional Queries:
The following query archives and purges only assigned inactive request records with a priority of 1:
priority = 1 AND (assignee IS NOT NULL OR group IS NOT NULL) and active = 0
The following query format archives and purges records based on time-span:
close_date < EndAtTime(\'LAST_YEAR\')
The Archive and Purge functionality also allows you to see a list of the purge rule history, which includes counts on how many records were Archived/Purged for each run of that rule.
Creating a set of parameters that work to meet your business needs, and running regular Archive and Purge rules are the best way to help keep your database in a manageable state, and can greatly reduce the time it takes for the data migration part of an upgrade to complete.
Additional Information
For additional information and details on the Archive and Purge functionality, please refer to our documentation
Feedback
