Planning Your Upgrade from Pro/INTRALINK 3.x to 8.0

By Scott Carmichael, NxRev, Inc.

Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 is built on PTC’s Windchill architecture. Windchill provides many administrative and user benefits, including a complete web-based design and collaboration environment, integrated visualization, dramatically better WAN performance, improved user interface, and extensive review and red-lining capabilities. In addition, the internal structure and access control functionality provides a much more robust method of managing access to your design environment. 

To successfully migrate your current environment to Pro/INTRALINK 8.0, it is important to review, test, and configure this new functionality to maximize its utility within your own company. Once you fully understand the new usage of Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 for your environment, you can plan and complete your migration.

Note: The migration to PDMLink is identical to that for Pro/INTRALINK 8.0, with one additional step (explained below).

Data Migrator

The Pro/INTRALINK Data Migrator is a command line-based utility that allows you to integrate one or more Pro/INTRALINK 3.x databases into one Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 database. The process requires several “mock” or test migrations of your database to uncover and resolve potential conflicts before a final migration to the Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 schema. During this process, your users, folders, release levels, attributes and revision scheme can be mapped to the same and/or new values. The major tasks/milestones in the migration process are: 

1.     Migration analysis and planning. Includes review of your existing Pro/INTRALINK 3.x source system and product development process, a review of the requirements of Pro/INTRALINK 8.0, and a plan for mapping metadata between the two different schemas.

2.     Metadata-only migration. Uncovers any and all conflicts within your metadata. Conflicts can then be resolved in your existing production Pro/INTRALINK 3.x system, your mapping files or  Pro/INTRALINK 8.0.

3.     Test migration. Allows detailed planning of your final migration. After this phase, you will have a fully functioning copy of your Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 database for testing of the ACL and document control processes.

4.     Final migration. Entails a final run of the Data Migrator software. Once completed, you can apply the ACL and process control rules created and validated in the test migration.

5.     Post-migration steps. Includes using several scripts and queues to complete the migration. 

Each milestone must be completed in turn to ensure success throughout the implementation. Details of each step are outlined in the below.

1.     Migration Analysis and Planning

Preliminary analysis and planning is the most critical phase in your data migration. In addition to reviewing your existing product development process for adherence in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x and its future adoption in Pro/INTRALINK 8.0, you need to test differences between 3.x and 8.0 to ensure a clean adaptation to your specific enterprise needs. Validation plans and data sets should be developed and recorded, and a migration timeline should be created. 

As a first step, you need to determine what data to migrate to the new system. Here are some basic guidelines.

Data that is migrated will be copied from the source Pro/INTRALINK 3.x system into the new 8.0 system. That data will be migrated according to its structure in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x, with the exception of information that is mapped. Folder structure, usernames, release levels and revisions can be mapped between the two systems (see options below). 

There are also several areas in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x that do not have a realistic method of mapping to the 8.0 system. These areas need to be reviewed and corresponding functionality in Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 will need to be configured and tested to ensure a successful migration and adaptation to your specific process. 

You should also review several areas within Pro/INTRALINK 8.0’s functionality to understand how they will affect current processes. Here are just a few areas where there are notable differences with Pro/INTRALINK 3.x.

·       Revision sequence. In Pro/INTRALINK 8.0, Revision becomes Version, and Version becomes iteration. In addition, 

-        Multiple versions can be worked on simultaneously.

-        Revising increments your version by one increment.

·       Lifecycle states.  Lifecycle states (formerly known as release level) can be integrated into your revision sequence and change workflow.   

-        Revising can also be controlled by the design’s lifecycle state. This allows multiple versioning schemes within your product lifecycle (e.g., numeric for engineering design and alpha once it’s in production).

-        Upon revising or updating a Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 document, you can set an automatic change of lifecycle state (e.g., on the revision of production items, the lifecycle can be automatically set to “In Work”).

-        Promoting/approving your design is far simpler and more applicable to the design process.  During the promote workflow, the end user is allowed to set “approvers and/or reviewers” on the fly.

·       Access control. The primary mechanism for controlling access is through usage of product containers and not folders. The use of folders in Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 is less critical thanks to a far more powerful and integrated search tool, decreasing your dependency on browsing through the folder structure. Moving files is also easier, so you should review your usage of folders before data migration begins. 

Several migration decisions thus require a basic understanding of Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 usage and a more detailed understanding of your customized usage of the solution. For example, how you want to use versioning, lifecycle, product/library containers and folders helps determine how the mappings are configured to control your migration. 

Once your Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 process is fully understood, you need to develop a test and validation plan. This should include bill of material and relationship reports run in Pro/INTRALINK 3.x that show attribute values and are set with “as-stored” configurations. It is recommended that you choose several (or all if it’s feasible) of your top-level products to verify and validate your migration. You also need to consider functional usage as it pertains to your document control process. All user roles and activities from initial concept design or new product introduction through release should be tested to ensure your process is configured adequately.

2. Metadata-only Migration

This is the first phase that involves using the Data Migrator tool. In the metadata-only migration phase, you want to uncover all conflicts between the 3.x source systems metadata and the planned usage of Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 and any of its metadata. Your first step should be to “clone” your existing production Pro/INTRALINK 3.x server. By duplicating this environment, you can more easily replicate a migration while ensuring minimal production downtime. 

After cloning your 3.x system, it’s time to install Pro/INTRALINK 8.0. The Data Migrator can then be installed on your Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 machine. A folder of scripts from this install will be used by the 3.x system and needs to be copied to the 3.x install loadpoint. These scripts allow you to “lock” the system so that the Data Migrator can extract the information it needs.

The metadata-only migration involves several steps: 

·       Load admin data. Pro/INTRALINK 3.x data is exported to text-editable property files (release levels, users, folders and attribute mappings).

·       Configure mappings. Mappings files may be edited to establish a method of converting or mapping your Pro/INTRALINK 3.x metadata to the 8.0 schema.

·       Load mappings. Mappings files are uploaded into the target system and compared to ensure compatibility.

·       Review and resolve conflicts. Conflicts are available in detailed HTML reports and can usually be resolved by either editing the source or the target system. Conflicts typically involve user, folder, release level, and revision sequence mapping.

·       Initiate the migration in discrete phases. The Data Migrator tool was created to allow you to migrate your data in stages, e.g., documents, family tables, and links.  This allows for a better understanding of failures and an easier way to troubleshoot any potential conflicts/errors.

·       Test system to ensure the metadata-only migration is valid.  Apply complete validation requirements, but omit any task that requires a check-out or retrieval of file content. 

At this point, you can log into Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 and all of your metadata will be loaded. You can perform any action that does not require access to the file content, such as reports, searches, browsing and form review. You should focus on testing your results to ensure Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 performs as expected.

3–4. Test and Production Migrations

After completing the metadata-only migration, all log files and results from your validation testing should be recorded. The purpose of the next phase is to build a more complete test environment for validation and to confirm the time and resource requirements for the final production migration. The test migration is performed the same as the metadata-only migration, except that you will also complete the file transfer phase. 

Once this is done, you will have a full copy of your Pro/INTRALINK 3.x environment to test in Pro/INTRALINK 8.0. This environment will be what you use in production and should be used to test, document, and validate your planned process and usage of Pro/INTRALINK 8.0. Any configuration can be exported and stored for usage once the final migration is completed.

The production migration should run identical to the test migration. The main difference here is that your production Pro/INTRALINK 3.x environment must be shut down to end-users. Many companies complete this migration during off-hours to minimize the impact on operations. Completing a successful test migration helps immensely when planning for your final migration and rollout to production. Furthermore, it minimizes any unforeseen issues that may affect the migration and ultimately user productivity.

Once the final migration is completed, any exported configurations from testing can be implemented and the new production Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 system is fully migrated.

5. Post-Migration Tasks

After completing your production migration, there are still a few tasks to complete. The first is to ensure the proper vaulting of any new data or documentation. All existing data must be migrated into an external vault, but new data (by default) will be configured for storage within Oracle as BLOBS (Binary Large OBjectS). This is generally not preferred because it can affect performance. Resetting your vaulting rules will quickly address this issue. 

Second, if you are upgrading to Windchill PDMLink, there is a final step in the Data Migrator that is used to create WTParts for each CAD document.

And third, you will want to schedule the queue manager to publish viewables and thumbnails for your recently migrated data and Index the database where appropriate. At this point, the system should be ready for full-production usage.

Final Considerations

Now that you have successfully migrated to Pro/INTRALINK 8.0, what do you do next? Well, there are many places to go to enhance your environment. One might be to upgrade it to PDMLink and incorporate your ECO/ECN control processes with Windchill. Another might be to integrate your PDM release into an ERP/MRP system.  Yet another might be to just get more people in your enterprise to review and/or red-line the design data. 

With Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 installed, these are many more options and possibilities out there. Good luck and best wishes with all your migration challenges!

Scott Carmichael is CTO of NxRev, Inc. in Santa Clara, CA. He can be reached by email at scott@nxrev.com.