Documentation forSolarWinds Observability SaaS

Collector Data Migration Tool

Use the Collector Data Migration Tool to migrate data from SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) to a different SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted or Network Collector instance. The tool configures the new instance so that you can start polling the monitored entities (nodes, interfaces, volumes, credentials, hardware health, virtualization, or applications) immediately with no additional user interaction.

Limitations

The tool is only available as an interactive application.

Supported SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted/Network Collector versions

  • To migrate from (source): 2023.4.2 and later
  • To migrate from (target): 2024.1.1 and later

The target version must be later than the source version - you can only migrate data from the same or from an earlier version of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted to the same or to a later version of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted/Network Collector.

The target instance must be empty (the only monitored node being the server itself)

It might take some time for the data to be available on the Network Collector:

  • Entity statuses might appear in Network Collector after up to 5-10 minutes after the migration
  • Entity properties might appear in Network Collector after up to 30 minutes after the migration
  • Topology details might require up to 60 minutes to compute after the migration

What can be migrated

Only specific data is migrated to the target Network Collector.

  • Network devices - nodes, including pollers and custom properties
  • Volumes, including pollers
  • Interfaces, including pollers and custom properties
  • Hardware health
  • Asset inventory
  • SAM applications, including custom properties
  • SAM components
  • Device Studio custom pollers
  • Network configuration data, such as global device defaults, connection profiles, or device level credentials
  • Virtualization entities

Installation

No installation is necessary.

  1. Contact Support to get the tool as an archive (PortXDataMigrator.zip)

  2. Extract the archive.

  3. Verify that Serilog.Sinks.File.dll in the extracted folder is unblocked. If the file is blocked, Data Migrator will not start and you will find a message in the Windows Event Log.

    1. Right-click the Serilog.Sinks.File.dll file and select Properties.

    2. Select the Unblock box and save your settings.

  4. Run the PortXDataMigrator.exe file as an Administrator.

Migrate data from a Hybrid Cloud Observability instance to a Network Collector

  1. On the target Network Collector machine, open the tool by running the EXE file from the PortXDataMigrator archive as an Administrator.

  2. Click Settings and define the source instance (where you want to migrate the data from) and the target network collector instance.

  3. In Source, specify the following:

    • Host Name: Type the host name or IP address of the deployment where you want to migrate data from. Usually, this is the Hybrid Cloud Observability main polling engine.
    • HCO User Name, HCO Password: Type the credentials you use to log in to the source web console. Your user account needs to have administrator privileges.

  4. Click Test connections. If the provided credentials and host definitions were correct, a Connection established message will be displayed in appropriate section (Source or Target). If the entered data was not correct or if a validation check fails, a red message will inform you about it.

  5. Click OK to exit Settings.

  6. Back on the Data Migrator screen, review the devices that were discovered.

    • If you want to migrate all of them, click Migrate.

    • If you want to migrate only specific devices, select the Select specific nodes to be imported box, select nodes to be imported and click Migrate.

The nodes will be migrated to the collector.

Command line mode

You can run the tool from the command line. If you use the command line, all data from the source is migrated to the target.

Use the --help command to view the parameters necessary for running the tool.

Troubleshooting

Logs are located in the file: c:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\PortXDataMigrator\PortXDataMigrator.log

Execution Timeout Expired

If you see this error, the timeout period elapsed before the operation completed.

The timeout might be caused by an overloaded Hybrid Cloud Observability/Network Collector server. Gathering data from the database by the Data Migration Tool may have interfered with another exhaustive operation running on the source or target server.

To resolve the issue, wait for several minutes and then rerun the migration.