D
Migrating Data to Oracle Files

This appendix tells you how to migrate content and users from legacy systems to Oracle Files. Topics include:

• Migrating Data from Other File Servers

Migrating Data from Other File Servers

Many Oracle Files administrators migrate data by scheduling downtime for the weekend, when file system usage is at a low point. The administrator can then perform the migration, shut down the old servers, and give the new server the same IP address, name, and other characteristics of the old system. When users arrive on Monday morning, they see the same file, FTP, or Web server they saw before. Some differences users may notice will be different paths to their files.

Server Consolidation Checklist

Consolidating users, folder hierarchy, content, and access privileges from other file server systems to Oracle Files involves moving:

• The user list from the old system to the new one. In short, you need to recreate each user as an Oracle Files user (by creating users using Oracle Internet Directory).
• The group list. You need to recreate the groups and add members to them.
• Content. The actual files and folders need to be copied from the old system to the new one.
• Applications. Any applications you run on the server or that you run remotely from the server need to move to the new system.
• Network configuration. You need to build the same network configuration around the new file server that you had around the old one. Issues like assigning an IP address or server name are covered in the Oracle Files Installation Guide

Migrate the Users

The first task in moving to a new Oracle Files server is creating the user list. For each user you want to migrate to Oracle Files, you will need to create a new user using Oracle Internet Directory. For detailed information on this process, see the Oracle Internet Directory Administrator's Guide.

Recreate the Groups

Recreating the groups requires creating the groups, then adding the users to them.

Scripted Group Creation

If your management tools let you export group information to a file, you could then write a translation script to convert the groups into XML format and then load them into Oracle Files.

Migrate the Content

After creating users and groups, the next step is to move the files and folders into Oracle Files.

What actually gets moved? The files and folders themselves, as well as the basic metadata about them that any Copy command would support during a copy operation through FTP, Windows networking, or some other protocol. The filename, size, and date last modified are the key attributes that get copied along with the content.

However, there may be metadata that you cannot migrate from the old system to Oracle Files. For example, if your old file system or document repository stores owner information, this type of metadata may not be copied with the file. The owner in this case becomes the Oracle Files user copying the file, not the original owner in the old system.

Similarly, if applications running on the old system maintain metadata about files, this information will not be copied with the files. For example, a document management system may point to files in the old file system and add attributes to these files. Since this information is intrinsic to the document management system, not the file system, the extra metadata will not get copied along with the files.

Protocols for Copying Data

When copying the files, you'll use one of the network protocols:

• FTP: The most lightweight protocol, FTP will move large amounts of data faster than the other protocols. For bulk operations, such as migrating from an existing system, FTP is the protocol of choice. You need to use either command line FTP or a GUI FTP client for this step. For more information about the FTP Quote commands, see Appendix F, "FTP Quote Command Reference".

  To FTP your files into Oracle Files, the following requirements must be met:

  • An FTP client must be installed on your local machine.
  • You must know the port number for FTP, which is chosen during configuration.
  • An account on the Oracle Files server must be already set up.

  To FTP your files into Oracle Files:

  1. Using an FTP client, log into the Oracle Files server. You can use either the hostname of the Oracle Files server or its IP address.
  2. Navigate to the files on your local machine that you want to load into Oracle Files and use your FTP client's utilities to load the files.

Note: If you have trouble logging into Oracle Files using your FTP client, make sure to enter the correct port, which is chosen during configuration of Oracle Files.

• SMB: The Windows file-sharing protocol SMB provides the ease of drag-and-drop copy operations from one system to another. However, SMB itself is a more complex protocol than FTP, performing extra operations like attempting to create a 0 kilobyte version of a file before actually copying the file. Therefore, SMB requires some sacrifice of performance for ease of use. In Windows:
  1. Map a network drive.
  2. Select the files from your local directory.
  3. Drag and drop the files into a folder on the Oracle Files drive.

  To retain the file structure:

  1. Click and drag the entire directory structure from the original file system into Oracle Files, or drag different parts of the directory tree separately, confirming that each part of the tree has been copied before copying the next one.
  2. Log into Oracle Files through Windows as a test user and verify that all the files and folders are accessible.
  3. From the Start menu, select Oracle Files from the Find option and perform a series of searches--on both filename and contents--to ensure that users can find files easily.
• Web Folders: A protocol designed for Internet and intranet collaboration on files, WebDav lets you drag and drop data from one system to another.
• NFS: The Network File System (NFS) protocol is used to provide file sharing between a client machine and a server machine across a network. The NFS protocol is a standard protocol which is widely used for file sharing on UNIX platforms.