XM to XM Cloud Migration tool - 2.1 - Using GUI

XM to XM Cloud Migration tool has two ways to use. GUI and CLI. In this blog post, we will go through GUI. 

When we open the GUI app, it gives an option to choose Content and Media and/or Users. When users are selected to migrate, it will take the user email and invite them to the Sitecore Cloud Portal. 

In the next screen, we have the options to enter the Source CM Url, and an admin username and password. 

In the next screen, target XM Cloud details are provided. XM Cloud Environment ID, CM base URL, Client ID and Client Secret. In this screen, there is a clear instruction on where to get these details in XM Cloud application. Please note that credentials should be Organization credentials as it needs that level access to invite the users to the Cloud portal. 

If the source environment details are correct, then we will see the source content tree in the next screen. We can select the content, media, templates. Please avoid any items which are available out of the box in the target system. 

When we select Templates and Content, this tool automatically changes the order to migrate Templates first and then migrate the Content. 

In the next screen, if all the details are valid, we will get the success confirmation. If not, we will get failure to connect details.

Once we click on Migrate, tool will start doing the magic of extracting the content from the source environment as Protobuf method as it is a faster serialization mechanism, split it into small batches (RAIF) and migrate it to XM Cloud.

If everything goes well, we will get the success message and content will be migrated to the XM Cloud.

Appsettings.json

Whatever value which is entered via GUI are stored in Appsettings.json file. The same file can be used for migrating the content using CLI. We will discuss in another blog post on CLI. 

Happy Migrating!!!

XM to XM Cloud Migration tool - 2.1 - Overview of Application Configuration

This is a continuation of XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool blog posts. Previously I explained the installation process here. In this post, I will explain the application setting file. 

There is a file named appsettings.json created whenever we use this tool. When the tool is downloaded from Sitecore Developers portal, the archive extract does not have this configuration. It will be automatically created when we run the GUI or CLI version of this tool. 

When the json file is auto-created for the first time, it is loaded with default values. When we start using the GUI app, the values that are entered in the GUI app will be stored in this json file. 

Some of the mandatory fields are needed for the tool to work.

Source

• SitecoreCmBaseUri - The URL to the Sitecore XM CM on-premise instance.
• SitecoreCmUserName - The URL to the Sitecore XM CM on-premise instance.
• SitecoreCmPassword - The password to login to the Sitecore XM CM on-premise instance.

Target

• SitecoreXmCloudEnvironmentId - The environment ID of the XM Cloud instance.
• SitecoreXmCloudCmBaseUri - The XM Cloud CM instance base url.
• SitecoreXmCloudClientId - The XM Cloud Client ID.
• SitecoreXmCloudClientSecret - The XM Cloud Client Secret.

Apart from these, we have a section where we can configure the content to be migrated to the target system. It is similar to SCS config or Unicorn. 

Name is an unique name for that section and Path is the Sitecore content tree path to be migrated to the target system. ContenTransferScope supports only one option at this time - ItemAndDescendants. This allows to migrate the item and its descendants under that folder or item to the target system. For MergeStrategy, there is only one option supported at this time – OverrideExistingItem which is going to overwrite it in the target system. 

As this tool supports the migration of content in batches, there are two additional settings by which we can control the transfer speed. By default, these settings are pre-populated with an optimal number. In case if you want to increase or decrease, we can make this change in the json file. 

RAIF Configuration - The Sitecore XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool transfers content and media via RAIFs (Batches). The settings below can be adjusted to better suit transfer needs. The default values have been set to provide a balanced transfer. Most customers will not need to adjust these values.

ItemsPerRaif define the amount of the transferred items. Too low setting of ItemsPerRaif can result in a large number of RAIF files being transferred, where too high of ItemsPerRaif can affect the transfer speed. ItemsPerRaif default is 10000 items per RAIF file. 

MediaSizeLimit - The media size limit per RAIF. User can set the value of the MediaSizeLimit property as needed. Assign only long value. No decimal or string. The default value is 104857600 which is 100MB. Example - A RAIF can contain maximum 100MB of media, if a media file exceeds the 100MB, the one media item will be in a single RAIF.

Additionally, the json configuration has settings related to inviting users to XM Cloud organization. This is used when we migrate the source Sitecore users to XM Cloud. 

Happy Migrating!!!