Installation and Upgrade Guides › SiteMinder Upgrade Guide › Planning Migration and Upgrades › How to Plan a Migration Strategy › Plan a Recovery Strategy

Plan a Recovery Strategy

Implement a recovery plan that lets you return to your original configuration if the upgrade fails. You cannot undo a migration or upgrade. We recommend backing up your entire environment before beginning the migration.

Important! The most complete recovery plan is to back up the entire image of each system—Policy Servers and Web Agents. We strongly recommend this method.

If you do not want to back up the entire image of each system, do the following:

• Back up all Web Agent and Policy Server binaries. Most of these files are in the bin subdirectory where you installed the Policy Server and Web Agent.
• Back up the Web Agent configuration file (WebAgent.conf).

  If you intend to manage Agents centrally from a 6.x Policy Server, supply the Agent configuration file to the Policy Server administrator. The Administrator needs this file to create an Agent Configuration Object, which defines the Agent configuration at the Policy Server.

  Note: For information about centrally managing Web Agents, see the Policy Design Guide.

• Export the policy store in clear–text to a file using the smobjexport tool.

  By exporting the store in clear–text you have a record of encrypted information, such as shared secrets. Also, having this information in a stand–alone file can be useful for future troubleshooting.

  Note: If the 6.x Policy Server uses the same encryption key as the 5.x Policy Server, you do not need to export the data stores in clear–text. Using clear–text is necessary only if the 5.x and 6.x Policy Servers use different encryption keys.

  For 5.x policy stores, use the appropriate 5.x version of smobjexport. Do not use the 6.x version of smobjexport to export an old policy store—it only works on 6.x policy stores.

  If your key store resides in the policy store, be sure to use the -k option with smobjexport because, by default, keys are not included in the export.

  For more information about using 5.x smobjexport, see the Policy Server Installation Guide for 5.x.

• Copy the 5.x installation scripts, hot fixes, and service packs so you can re–install if necessary. If you do not have copies, download them from the Technical Support site.