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Dear @Mathias Dahl,

I’m reaching out to you directly, as I believe you are the most knowledgeable person to answer this. We have a customer running on IFS 10 UPD10 on Microsoft Azure Cloud (in their own subscription, not in IFS Managed Cloud). They are using the IFS Docman functionality extensively, with a large number of documents saved on an FTP server.

They are planning to upgrade to IFS Cloud (possibly 24R2 or later), and there’s a chance the installation will take place in Oracle Cloud. As we know, IFS no longer supports FTP as a repository, but IFS Cloud currently supports "File Storage" using an SMB (Server Message Block) share to store files.

My questions are:

  1. Can we use the Cloud File Storage Migration Tool to migrate files from IFS 10 (from the FTP server) to IFS Cloud (SMB share)?

    Note: I read about the limited support for this tool. However, I would like to know your opinion on whether we can rely on this tool, or if there is a better alternative. For example, could we copy the documents to the SMB share and adjust the IFS-relevant metadata via a script, since this is a remote deployment?

    Excerpt from the documentation: Although the tool supports documents stored in Shared and FTP document repositories, it does not use the basic data for document repositories to determine where to read the files from. The file location needs to be specified in a text file, meaning the text file option is necessary for these two repository types. In the text file, the location of the file must be defined, and it's up to the user of the tool to ensure they have access to this folder. If a network share is used, it's up to the user or admin to ensure the tool can read from the share. The tool does not have a built-in authentication mechanism for FTP or network shares/SMB.

  2. Even if the tool supports migration, would it be better to migrate the documents to the SMB share before the upgrade, or after?

    Note: I haven’t gone through the entire process, but I assume the tool supports batch-wise transfers rather than transferring the full set at once.

  3. Is there any other advice you could give us for this situation?

For clarity, I’ve attached a simple diagram of the current setup and the proposed setup after the upgrade.

 

Kind Regards

Amila                

I don't have the time to answer in detail but, if you can spend some time trying to learn about how IFS stores data about the checked in files, in Docman and File Storage, you can probably figure out a way to do the migration much faster than going through the tool. By getting an understanding of how things works under the cover, and it's NOT hard, you will be in control and can possibly save time on troubleshooting any errors from the tool. I have outlined this in other posts but you want to look at all the "edm_XYZ" tables, plus fss_file_tab, to get the full picture. And also, the file names in file storage needs to be base 64 encoded...

I don't have the time to answer in detail but, if you can spend some time trying to learn about how IFS stores data about the checked in files, in Docman and File Storage, you can probably figure out a way to do the migration much faster than going through the tool. By getting an understanding of how things works under the cover, and it's NOT hard, you will be in control and can possibly save time on troubleshooting any errors from the tool. I have outlined this in other posts but you want to look at all the "edm_XYZ" tables, plus fss_file_tab, to get the full picture. And also, the file names in file storage needs to be base 64 encoded...

Thanks @Mathias Dahl  for your reply, appreciated

@AmilaF We are upgrading from Apps 10 Update 18 to IFS Cloud 23R2. Currently our documents are held in an FTP repository in Apps 10 and like you, we are having to migrate to FileStorage using a SMB Share on a Windows server.

IT have copied the files from the FTP to the SMB Share, and then I have written some PL/SQL scripts to correct the setup within IFS Cloud. 

This seemed to work, and we can view existing and upload new documents.

@AmilaF We are upgrading from Apps 10 Update 18 to IFS Cloud 23R2. Currently our documents are held in an FTP repository in Apps 10 and like you, we are having to migrate to FileStorage using a SMB Share on a Windows server.

IT have copied the files from the FTP to the SMB Share, and then I have written some PL/SQL scripts to correct the setup within IFS Cloud. 

This seemed to work, and we can view existing and upload new documents.

If you are allowed to share those scripts I'm sure others here would be grateful to have them as inspiration for their own migrations.

@AmilaF We are upgrading from Apps 10 Update 18 to IFS Cloud 23R2. Currently our documents are held in an FTP repository in Apps 10 and like you, we are having to migrate to FileStorage using a SMB Share on a Windows server.

IT have copied the files from the FTP to the SMB Share, and then I have written some PL/SQL scripts to correct the setup within IFS Cloud. 

This seemed to work, and we can view existing and upload new documents.

Dear @SHAUN_KERSLAKE 

Many thanks for your reply, much appreciated. As indicated by @Mathias Dahl, is it possible to share those scripts for review to see if they could be useful for us?
 

kr

Amila

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