Migrating standalone products to Automation Suite

For migrating your standalone Orchestrator data to Automation Suite, you can follow one of the two processes available:

A) full migration or

B) single tenant migration

You must choose one process to use, you cannot use both.

This page describes the differences between the two options to help you choose which one to use.

How each process works

Both processes are for moving your data from the standalone installation of Orchestrator to the Orchestrator service in Automation Suite, but there are some differences.

The full installation migration process essentially links your standalone Orchestrator database to Automation Suite, so all the data it includes is available in Automation Suite. You should use this method if, in addition to Orchestrator, you also want to migrate other products and services.

The full migration option ensures high-fidelity data transfer between the standalone product databases and the automatically created Automation Suite databases. If you do not want to use the default Automation Suite databases, you can opt for your own migrated databases provided that you update their connection strings.

The single tenant migration process, on the other hand, uses the Automation Cloud™ Migration Tool to strictly copy the entities present in your standalone Orchestrator. The tool retrieves them from standalone Orchestrator over API and then writes them in Automation Suite over API.

Differences between the migration options

	Full installation migration	Single tenant migration
Scope	Tenants: All tenants. Entities: Everything that is stored in the database - for example machines, user-machine mappings, and role assignments. Orchestrator configurations: Orchestrator in Automation Suite is configured exactly as it was in your standalone installation.	Tenants: Only the targeted tenant. But you can run the tool multiple times to migrate several or all tenants. Entities: Only migrates the Orchestrator entities listed here. Orchestrator configurations: Some Orchestrator settings are migrated, but not all. Details...
Outcome	Orchestrator in Automation Suite contains exactly the same data and is configured in exactly the same way as your standalone Orchestrator.	All your entities are copied over to Orchestrator, but Orchestrator in Automation Suite uses the default Automation Suite configuration. To get to the same setup you had in your standalone installation, you must perform a first-time configuration of Automation Suite, which you can do at any time - before or after migration.
Prerequisites	Requires that you upgrade standalone Orchestrator to a version that matches the targeted Automation Suite version.	Supports direct migration from any supported standalone Orchestrator version 2019.4.
Organization hierarchy	For every tenant from your standalone Orchestrator, you will have one organization which contains one tenant. For example, if you have 10 tenants, the result of migration will be 10 organizations with one tenant each.	You can migrate your tenants to the same organization, or to several organizations, as needed.

Combined migration scenario for testing

Although typically you can only use one migration option or the other, this sample scenario describes a use case where you could use both.

If you intend to perform the full migration, the Automation Cloud Migration Tool can support the migration process by allowing you to more easily set up a test environment in Automation Suite with production data that you can use for end-to-end testing.

If you want to first test Automation Suite and would like to do so on your actual Orchestrator data, here is what the full process might look like:

1. Deploy Automation Suite in a test or development environment.

2. Migrate partial data from standalone Orchestrator to Automation Suite using the Cloud Migration Tool. See Single tenant migration for instructions.

   This allows you to perform a proof-of-concept or trial on a real dataset. At this point, you have your Orchestrator data, but you are using the default Automation Suite and Orchestrator configurations. You can, for example, readily test run a process, but you cannot readily log in with an SSO account.

3. With the partial migration complete, validate critical scenarios and use cases and address any issues.

4. Upgrade the test environment for standalone Orchestrator to the desired version.

   Follow the instructions in Updating using the Windows installer and make sure to put the environment in read-only mode.

5. Perform a test migration to Automation Suite following the Full migration instructions.
6. Redirect all test users and robots to the new Automation Suite test environment.
7. Address any issues during and after the migration, validate the process end-to-end.
8. Deploy Automation Suite in a production environment.

9. Upgrade you production environment for standalone Orchestrator to the desired version.

   Follow the instructions in Updating using the Windows installer and make sure to put the environment in read-only mode.

10. Perform the full production migration to Automation Suite following the Full migration instructions.

    Important: This overwrites the previously migrated data, which is lost. With this migration, all your custom configurations are applied, and your Orchestrator entities are also migrated. You should see the same information in Automation Suite as you do in your standalone Orchestrator.
11. Redirect all production users and robots to the new Automation Suite production environment.

Frequently asked questions

Can I migrate only some of my tenants using the full installation migration?

If needed, you can discard tenants from standalone Orchestrator that you no longer need (for example, testing tenants). If you do not create an organization and tenant pair for a tenant from your standalone installation, it is not available in Automation Suite. The data for any discarded tenants is still migrated to the new database, but the tenants are not accessible from the user interface.

Important: We recommend caution when using this approach because this operation is irreversible and you cannot later add any of the discarded tenants to Automation Suite.