Analyze batch data before migration

Before you can migrate your batch data to AF event frames, you must analyze your batch data to find potential incompatibilities with AF. After fixing essential issues (such as creating any necessary PI identity mappings) and making any optional changes, you can migrate your data.

1. In PI AF Link in the Operations section of PI SMT, select the Data Archive server for which you want to migrate batch data.

   Note: The field Batch database status indicates whether analysis has already been run, or if migration is complete.

2. Click Analyze to find potential incompatibilities with AF in your batch data.

   The Analyze function checks that the user running PI AF Link has appropriate permissions (read-write permissions on the PI SMT AF Link Security database are required).

   Analysis might take a few minutes, depending on the size of your online archives.

3. Click View report to obtain a list of issues.

   The report summarizes the number of batch records analyzed and issues encountered, shows if there are any gaps in your archives, and provides details about issues such as missing links between batch objects, and any PI identity mappings that need to be created.

   • Issues marked with a red X must be resolved before migration.

   • Issues marked with a yellow bell warning icon are recommended to be resolved before migration.

   • Issues marked with a blue i are optional.

4. If you have archive gaps that you want to fill, use the PI SMT Archives tool or command-line tools to register archives that cover the gaps. Click View in the Registered Archives box to find out more information about the gaps in your archives.

   While avoiding archive gaps is recommended to ensure a complete Batch Database is online, it is not required to fill these gaps to complete the migration. Because batch data is migrated only once, filling the gaps with batch data at a later time does not cause that batch data to be migrated to event frames. Batch data is only migrated once, so make sure all of your batch data is online before you perform the migration.

5. Security for migrated event frames is based on mappings of Windows Active Directory users and groups to PI identities. Therefore, you will be prompted to create a mapping for each PI identity that is part of the access control list (ACL) on any Batch Database record, if the mapping does not already exist. Click Create mapping and enter required information for each new mapping.

   The mappings created for the Module database to AF synchronization are still valid for batch to event frame migration, but there might be some additional mappings needed.

   Note: After migration, users who had read and write permissions to PI Batch data should have read and write access to event frames. However, in some situations, batch to event frame migration will not be able to set the security on event frames. If this happens, a message to that effect is recorded in the list of migration errors shown in AF Link. In such cases, the event frames will either inherit permissions from the parent or be assigned default permissions (defined by event frame templates).

6. There are some characters that are valid for names in the Batch Database but are not valid in AF. Before migration, you can modify these names in the Batch Database, or they will be replaced with a default character in AF (only) during migration.

   For example, a semicolon (;) is replaced with a comma (,) and square brackets are replaced with parentheses. After migration, you can view the original character before it was replaced in the event frame's Extended Properties.

   For further details about migration issues, see Analysis error report.

7. The maximum length of an object name in AF is 259 characters. You can shorten long names, for example Batch IDs, before migration, or allow them to be truncated during migration.

   After migration, the full original name is stored in the event frame Extended Properties.

8. If you made any changes, click Rerun analysis to re-analyze the Batch Database.

9. After you have fixed essential issues and have made all desired optional changes, follow the steps in Migrate batch data to event frames.

   Note: When you start the migration, the Batch Database becomes read-only, therefore you need to prepare thoroughly before migration. See Prepare batch data sources and consumers for migration if you have not already done so.