Migrating AKIPS’ server to a new VM

Build new VM with a different IP address

Read this blog when the Server Team provision the VM: 
https://www.akips.com/deployment/

Important: The backup server needs double the disk space of your primary server. 
 

1. Request a new activation license by emailing keys(at)akips.com. The license for a server is based on the server ID, which is derived from the MAC address and the UUID of the server.  

If you are pre-provisioning new servers, keys(at)akips.com will provide new server keys based on you decommissioning the old servers.

2. Provision another VM as a backup server if your organisation has not yet implemented a backup AKIPS’ server. 

Backup servers do not need to be licensed, except if you want to restore to the backup server itself in a DR situation. 

Note: The backup server needs double the disk space of your primary server. 

If you have multiple AKIPS’ servers that are polling, then the backup server needs to be double the total size of all AKIPS’ servers. 

Even though we compress the backups, we store multiple incremental copies of your AKIPS’ server on the backup server, which is why it needs to be twice the disk space of the primary AKIPS’ servers. 
 

3. Confirm that your backup server disk is twice the size of your new primary server disk.

 4. Take a copy of the LDAP setting on your old server (if using LDAP). 

*There is a current bug as of 22.6 that will be fixed in a future release where the LDAP setting are not backed up and therefore are not restored* 

All of the local user accounts are backed up/restored, it's just the actual LDAP settings. 
 

5. Once you are ready to migrate, run a manual backup on the server that will be migrated (Admin > System > Backup > Run Backup). 

Wait for the backup to finish, then confirm that the backup was successful (Admin > System > Backup > Check Status). 
 

6. On your new server, navigate to Admin > System > Restore.

Enter the IP address of the backup server and the akips password.

Click Save Authentication.

Click List Backups. 

Select the server and latest backup. 

Click Restore. 
 

7. Once the restore is successful, check to see if you have any database issues, which are shown on AKIPS’ menu bar on the right-hand side. 

If there are issues, run a database validation and repair by clicking on the database error message. 
 

8. Confirm that you have all the devices, and you can see device/interface/traps/netflow/syslog/old configs from config crawler etc. 

If you have pre-licensed the server you should see the full history. 

If you only see 2 days of history, then the server isn't correctly licensed. 

Add back in the LDAP settings to your new server. 

If you have your temporary address configured in your LDAP server/allowed via FWs, then confirm that an LDAP user can login. 
 

9. If the restore was successful, change the IP address on your old server to an unused address.

• • this will avoid an IP address conflict if you need to boot your old server backup to check anything 

Change the IP address on your new server to that of your old server.

Restart the new server. 
 

10. After the reboot, confirm everything is polling correctly on the new server for 30 minutes. 

   Check:

• device and interface stats are showing/updating
• run a manual config crawl of devices (if you are using it)
• you are getting Netflow, traps, syslog
• an LDAP user can login
• your alerting is working i.e. reboot a test device or down an interface etc. 
• everything you need to be satisfied that your migration was successful.

 
Note: there will be a gap in the stats between when the backup occurred on your old server and when you changed the IP address and the new server started polling. 
 

11. The scheduled 80-minute backup should have automatically started and completed and run (Admin > System > Backup > Check Status). 

If not, run a manual backup (Admin > System > Backup > Run Backup).