Presence Migration Guide

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Introduction

This is a best practices guide to migrating Presence from one server to another, attempting to highlight some potential pitfalls that can be avoided with some planning.

Pre-Migration Checklist

Host Dependencies

Very often Presence Tasks are built to be dependent on the environment in which the Presence Server runs. Some examples include:

  • Use of absolute file paths
  • IP Address references
  • Executable Programs

These can cause a headache when migrating. For example:

  • Your Task may run a gateway program on the server's C Drive. Does this gateway program also exist on the new server's C Drive? If not, your Task will break unexpectedly.
  • Your Task may write to a file located in c:\myfiles\ - does the same directory exist on the new Server? Are Permissions set correctly?
  • The server's IP Address may be hard-coded in Tasks, or may appear in a list of authenticated servers on an FTP Server that a Task connects to. When the IP Address changes what implications will this have on your Tasks?

Careful thought needs to go into these questions and time should be spent ensuring that when the Server migration is complete everything will run as it used to. Consider replacing hard-coded file paths, IP Addresses, etc, with Global Variables so that these things can be easily changed.

Firewall Considerations

Please consult the document describing Server Ports. Will these ports be accessible to client PCs and other machines that Presence is dependent on? Do you need to modify your firewall settings?

License Migration

Presence Server licenses are based on the physical address of the network card, also known as the MAC Address. In order for the Server to run successfully on the new host the license file must match that host's MAC Address. This will involve International Presence generating a new license file for you, which usually attracts an administration charge. This should be done in advance of the migration. For replacement license files please drop us an email.