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  • 1.  Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 01-29-2019 12:31
    Hello all,

    We are operating a 2017R2 environment supporting multiple customers and are in process of standing up 2018R5 both on premise with new servers/hardware. In doing this we will be incrementally migrating customers from the old 2017R2 servers to the new 2018R5 servers.

    Question is, has anyone successfully merged data between two different SQL databases given this type of scenario? We are a 24x7x365 operation and cannot afford to take any hard downtime.

    We ran the then provided migration utility to migrate our SQL data when we moved from 3.0 to the 4.0 platform. We ran it multiple times successfully. We are hoping to do something similar this time around but so far haven't found a solid answer.

    Hoping someone has attempted this before with positive results. Our goal is to migrate all historical data and if at all possible do it incrementally vs. all at once. (avoiding hard down time as well) We have an open ticket w support on this as well.

    Thanks,
    Shane
    #Reporting/Analytics


  • 2.  RE: Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 01-29-2019 12:53
    I'm not sure if this will help, but you are aware that multiple IC servers can report to the same database? If you are not replacing the actual DB servers, this may be an option. Obviously, careful testing will be required....


  • 3.  RE: Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 01-29-2019 13:03
    That's great to know and is interesting. Will have to think about that and we'd probably have to upgrade the db schema of the current prod database, as the newer IC version 2018 R5 would want an upgraded version. Wonder if the older 2017 R2 could continue writing to an upgraded db?

    We are not planning to replace the actual DB servers. We just need to upgrade/replace our telephony servers w Windows 2016 and move off of older hardware running Windows 2008 R2.

    As you say careful testing would need to be done. We do have a lab environment and have both versions of IC in our lab so we can potentially do some testing.

    We're hopeful that some customers have been through this before and interested to learn what they learned/did.

    Thanks much for the reply!

    ------------------------------
    Shane Jenkins
    SAIC
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  • 4.  RE: Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 01-29-2019 14:49
    We are still in planning, but essentially doing the same thing.  However, we are adding a new db to make it easier(?) . 
    As I understand it, two pureconnect environments connected to one DB are different Sites.  This means that queue1 on system1 is a different DB entity than queue1 on system2. The same would be true with users.  
    To avoid jumping through reporting hoops, we plan to restore the existing DB to a new DB and use that for the upgrade.  This should maintain the integrity of the entities and site number.

    The $0.02 of our plan is:
    1. Restore existing DB to new DB
    2. Install Pureconnect (use existing DB during install process, using the new one)
    3. Use migrator to get appropriate configs (users, workgroups, attendant, etc.)
    4. Perform all testing
    5. On cutover night, restore existing DB. Then use setup assistant to upgrade the DB.
    I know it's not really a report of success, but hopefully it gives you some help in planning.

    ------------------------------
    Tim Cannon
    Elevate Credit Services, LLC
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 01-29-2019 15:57
    Tim,

    If you are going for a "Hail Mary" cut-over, then I agree that your plan is probably preferable. Shane said that they were doing a phased transition, however. My concern with moving the data over in chunks is that there is nothing to prevent (even if it's unlikely) conflicting entries in the two databases. Two calls with the same Interaction ID, for example.

    Whatever approach you use, however, I would strongly advise performing a practice run in a testing environment first and just know that, however carefully you plan, the unexpected will happen - so expect it!


  • 6.  RE: Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 01-30-2019 10:12
    +1 on the "Practice Run"

    ------------------------------
    Tim Cannon
    Elevate Credit Services, LLC
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 01-30-2019 12:40
    This morning I configured our two lab IC instances (one running 2017 R2 and the other running 2018 R5) to use the same (2018 R5) database. I ran setup assistance on the 2017 R2 and pointed it to the 2018 R5 database. That seemed to work without any issue. I also placed a few test calls on both servers and those got written to the db as you would expect. I do have each IC instance configured as its own unique site ID.

    I'll continue testing but this may prove to be a viable path forward. As Paul mentioned, I guess there is a chance of both systems generating the same call ID. Will try to determine what other risks may be involved here.

    Most of our reporting is strictly based upon agent UserID, workgroup name or we use call detail/interaction Summary. So I believe having different site ID's shouldn't pose a huge issue.

    Thanks again for the feedback. Tim, really appreciate your thought process and input as well. If anyone else has tried various methods on this, would really like to hear about them.

    Regards,
    Shane

    ------------------------------
    Shane Jenkins
    SAIC
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Merging SQL Databases

    Posted 02-01-2019 09:32
    As long as they have different SiteIDs, you shouldn't have a problem with duplicate CallIDs.

    Added advantage that you can (if you wish) run either combined reports across both systems, or filter by site. I'm not 100% sure if it will "see" the same agent ID, Workgroup ID and so on at both sites as being the same for reporting, but you can easily test that out to be sure.


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