Get ready to run the migration process

Caution: Before getting ready to run migration, you must assess all of your batch data sources and consumers and prepare them for the transition. See Prepare batch data sources and consumers for migration.

To run the migration process, you need to have certain versions of software installed, and sufficient permissions set, as described here.

If you are running PI Server 2010 or later, with no data in the Module Database

If you are running PI Server 2010 or later and the following conditions apply, you must perform some tasks before migration:

• You have not added data to your Module Database.

• Use the MDB Editor in PI SMT to check your Module Database; if the only modules you see are in the %OSI branch, you have no user data in your Module Database.

• You have Batch Subsystem batches.

• The pre-migration analysis that you run from the AF Link tool in PI-SMT shows you if you have PI Batch Subsystem units (the PI Batch Subsystem must be running during the analysis).

If you have no Module Database and do have PI Batch Subsystem batches that you want to migrate to event frames, perform these steps before migration:

1. Migrate the Module Database to AF. Use the PI MDB to AF Preparation Wizard, which is included in PI AF Link in PI SMT.

2. Map PI Batch Subsystem units to the PI Module database. For information about how to do this, see Prepare batch data sources and consumers for migration.

Ensure you have Data Archive 2015 or later

To migrate your batch data to event frames, you need to be running Data Archive 2015 or later, which includes the analysis and migration tools in PI-SMT. This release introduced support for migrating batch data to event frames.

Direct upgrade to PI Server 2015 or later is supported from all 64-bit versions of Data Archive (versions 3.4.370.99, and later).

If you have a version older than 3.4.370.99, first move your Data Archive server to a 64-bit computer and then upgrade to PI Server 2015 or later. For more information, see the Knowledge Base article: Upgrading to 64-bit PI Data Archive while moving to 64-bit hardware.

Ensure you have PI AF Server 2015 or later

At migration time, you must have at least PI AF Server 2015 (version 2.7) or later installed on your system.

Configure batch interface security settings to access AF

Before starting migration, configure AF security settings to ensure that the account running the batch interface has permission to create event frames.

The account running the PI batch interface, version 4.0, must be able to connect to the target AF server and database, and have the following AF permissions:

• Database: Read and Write

• Categories: Read and Write

• Elements: Read and Write

• Element templates: Read and Write

• Event frames: Read and Write

Make offline archives available online

When you migrate to event frames, all historical archives that are registered with Data Archive will have their batch data migrated. If you register additional historical archives with batch data after you perform the migration, those archives' batch data will not be migrated. So be sure all batch data is registered with Data Archive before migration.

SQL Server Express insufficient for large data sets

If you are using the Express edition of SQL Server, we recommend you do not work with more than 3 million event frames. You can determine the number of event frames that will be created by running the Analyze function and reviewing the results of the analysis.