DAC to DAC data movement

[MohdSaadKhan]

Hi All,

I have a DAC attached to decoder and concentrator at one location and it is working from last few months. Now I have another location which came up recently with another decoder and concentrator along with their respective DACs. Now I want to move the data from DACs of old site to DACs of new site so how can i achieve this at concentrator and decoder level?

[JohnKisner]

It really depends on the status of the new equipment. If the new equipment already has data on it and you want to keep it as well as move the old data to it, the simple answer is you can't. The long answer is due to internal file pointers within the database files that could overlap you can't merge this data together.

However if you do not need or do not have data on the new DACs you have three options.

1. Copy the data across the network from one appliance to the other, making sure that you place all database files of a particular type into the same location on the new appliance. For instance copy the /var/netwitness/decoder/metadb on the old appliance to the /var/netwitness/decoder/metadb on the new. The major downside is this can take a very very long time depending on the amount of data, the network speed between the appliances and the fact that both appliances cannot be used until the copy is completed.

2. The other option is to disconnect the old DACs from their appliances and connect them to the new appliances. This way you can copy them over the SAS cable from one DAC to the other a lot quicker. The issues with this is that both sets of appliances will be down until the copy is completed. Also there is some extra steps you would need to take as the logical volume names will be the same on both sets of DACs so when you try to mount the old ones to the new appliances the OS may get confused since it sees two logical volumes with the same names. 

3. This would be the easiest. Take the DACs on the old appliances and replace the DACs on the new appliances with them. Completely swap them around. At that point you would need to make sure that the services see the files correctly, in Explore view for the database locations. You would then need to run the reconfig on the database nodes to make sure that the sizes are properly known to the service. Then you start the service up and continue where it left off.

Remember all these options are only if you do not need the data on the new DACs. If you do need it then you cannot combine this data.