Migrating from One Server to Another

Hi,
I am also considering the same situation, i.e. if my current K2 server crashes and I need to fall back on another new server, what would be the recovery activities needed. Did you receive a response to your support request? Would really appreciate if you are willing to share the answers.

Thanks,
Benedict

bandrsolutions:

I have submitted a support request for the following, however, I am interested to see if anyone has any additional input on how I can approach the following scenario:

Our infrastructure was recently changed from the following:

Server1 - Name: gserver16
AD Domain Controller - domain eshare.ratioone.com
SharePoint Portal Server
SQL Server
K2.net Server

Server 2 - Name: eshare002
AD Domain Controller - eshareuk.com
SharePoint Portal Server
SQL Server
K2.net Server

The entire infrastructure went through a rebuild, and has been changed into the following:

Server 1 - Name: eshareuk-dc01
AD Domain Controller - eshareuk.com

Server 2 - Name: eshareuk-sps01
SharePoint Portal Server
K2.net Server (to be installed on this server)

Server 3 - Name: eshareuk-db01
SQL Server 2000 sp3a

What we have remaining from the old installation is:
-All of the SharePoint Portal Servers (they have all been restored)
-The K2 Databases
-The KPR Files
-For some of the workflows, the .kpj files
-For one workflow, the .ksn file
-The vssver.scc files
-The IIS metabase backup

What I need to know is how we can go about restoring these workflows to the SharePoint Portals they were originally setup for. The portals have not changed, only the server names that everything is installed on has. Also - the active directory domain name changed for some of these - not sure if that will matter.

This is similar to a disaster recovery scenario.

Thanks for any guidance.

This is how I would do it:

K2.net® 2003 Service
1. From the Services applet in Administrative Tools, open the K2.net® 2003 Server service and stop the service. You can also stop the service by issuing the following command from a command prompt: net stop k2server2003 .

K2.net® 2003 Databases
1. Backup the existing K2.net® 2003 transaction and log databases.
2. Install K2.net® 2003 Server (and any other K2.net® 2003 components that you have installed on the old server) on the new server and have the install create clean K2.net® 2003 databases on the new SQL server.
3. Use the SQL Query Analyzer to run the script (Script 1) and remember to replace the [REPLACE WITH THE K2 TRANSACTION DATABASE NAME] with your transaction(K2) database name.

Script 1 (This script will create a db that will be removed in another script that will follow)

GO

SET NOCOUNT ON

SELECT * INTO K2Specs_Server..K2ServerDetails
FROM _server

SET NOCOUNT OFF
SELECT * FROM K2Specs_Server..K2ServerDetails

4. Restore the databases from step 1 over the new K2.net® databases.
5. Use the SQL Query Analyzer to run the script (Script 2) and remember to replace [REPLACE WITH THE K2 TRANSACTION DATABASE NAME] with your transaction database name.

Script 2

DROP TABLE #_server_temp

USE MASTER         
DROP DATABASE K2Specs_Server

6. Start the K2.net® 2003 Server service and ensure that that the Status in the Windows Services display Started
7. Make sure that there are not any errors in the K2Error.txt file in the in directory where you installed K2.net®.

K2.net® 2003 SmartForms
1. If you have a K2.net® 2003 SmartForms solution and only if the server names are not the same, you will have to change the plan server name in your web.config file of the K2.net® 2003 SmartForms solution.

K2.net® 2003 Server
If you have IPC (Inter Process Communication) events in your processes and the server name was used instead of (local) in step 2 of 4 of the K2.net® IPC Wizard, the situation can be handled in the following way:
1. Gather all the information needed to be able to recapture the process instances.
2. Open the K2.net® 2003 Service Manager and expand the tree view by clicking on the + sign until you see the running processes.
3. Click with the left mouse button on one of your processes. You will see that an Interface icon will appear in the right hand pane.
4. Double click on the Instances icon to open up the Process Manager.
5. Click on Find Now .
6. Click on Select All if there are any instances and click on the X button.
7. Select the Delete Log Entries check box and click on the OK button.
8. Manually capture all the records again.

Note:

The reason you will need to turn off the old K2.net® 2003 Server at the point that the backups are made is so that nobody can interact with the server between the time that the backups are made and the time that the new server is started. If you run the two servers in parallel in a non-clustered setup the data on the two databases will be different.

The K2.net® 2003 server name, SQL Server name, and potentially the IIS server name might be different after the migration. Ensure that after you have the K2.net® 2003 Server running all the String tables reflect the new server names. It might require that you reconfigure and re-export the processes if there are any hard coded values.

The fact that the worklist serial number contains the server name isn t an issue unless someone is using the serial number to derive the server name. Any new worklist items will reflect the new server name, but the old ones are still valid.