Introduction

This document describes the migration feature embedded in Policies. This feature supports the automated transfer of configuration data between two environments for a variation of scenarios, migration of linked reference data, the propagation of removed configuration items and migration paths that include more than one source environment.

The migration function is embedded in the application and is operated through user interface pages to build, publish and load configuration data sets. Access privileges to these pages are assigned through configurable user roles. Configuration Migrations are performed to and from online environments, allowing for small, selective migrations to target environments.

This document uses the terms 'source environment', 'target environment' and 'migration set'. The migration set is the file that holds all configuration items for a migration, that is, the migration payload. The source environment is the environment from which the migration set is exported. The target environment is the environment which imports the migration set. The payload of a set, for example, products, group accounts, definitions and schedules, are called configuration items.

There are two kinds of configuration items: top-level items and dependent items. Top level items can be independently included in a migration set; dependent items are the configuration pieces that are integral details of a larger, top-level item. Configuration Migration automatically includes dependent items in the migration payload as part of the top-level item they belong to. For example, a group account is a top-level item and can therefore be individually selected for migration. Group account products, however, are dependent items that can’t be individually selected and that are automatically migrated together with the group account they belong to.

Some configuration items can be both a top-level item and a dependent item. These are typically rudimentary re-usable configuration items referenced by more than one rule. Examples are messages and dynamic logic. To prevent unnecessary large payloads and unwarranted updates to these items, the user can 'trim down' a top-level item by specifying which dependent top-level items can be carved out of the migration set. This does require that these items are already present on the target environment.

In addition to the standard auditing features available for all records in the Policies database, the configuration items created on a target environment through migration store additional audit information relating to the source environment. See auditing-features.adoc for more details.