Google Search Appliance Upgrade and Migration Handbook User Manual
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Approach
The following steps describe the approach of migrating a search appliance by mirroring:
1. Examine the GSA version of the “target” GSA and check release notes of this version and of any
later patches, for issues that may affect the deployment environment. Upgrade the target GSA to
the appropriate patch if necessary.
2. Ensure both GSAs are on the same software version, have the same document license count and
are of compatible search appliance models (see mirroring link below). In many cases, the “source”
GSA will need to be updated to the same version as the target GSA.
3. Pause crawling on the source search appliance, as well as any feeds or connector traversals.
4. Configure mirroring, with the source GSA set up as a master, and the target GSA set up as a
replica.
5. Allow the data sync to complete to 100%, to ensure all content and configurations are copied.
6. Disable mirroring between the source appliance and the target appliance.
7. Resume crawl on the target search appliance, and reconfigure any feeds or connectors to start
sending new content to the new target search appliance.
8. [optional] If a production backup appliance is in use, enable mirroring and setup the already
configured appliance as the master, and the new production backup as the replica. Let the replica
sync to 100%.
9. Cutover to new appliance(s) and decommission old appliance(s).
For more information on mirroring, including compatible appliance models and data that is copied and not
copied during mirroring, see
.
Migration configurations only
The alternative method to GSA migration is through exporting the configuration files from one search
appliance and importing it into another.
Since importing a configuration file does not copy the search index from one search appliance to another, a
full crawl is required to populate the search index. Furthermore, any feeds or connectors must be configured
to resend documents to the new GSA after the configuration has been imported.
This migration method is most appropriate when:
●
Changes are planned to deployment architecture, such as new content sources being integrated
●
New GSA features are desired that require reindexing of content
Advantages of this migration method:
●
Provides ability to control what content is indexed on the new appliance
●
Minimal impact to the deployment of existing production GSAs, as the new GSAs can be
configured and tested independently before cutting over
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