Migrating Using Re-platform

The entire migration process using Re-platform (previously referred to as scan) has 5 main steps:

  1. Scan the source machine. You can select two types of scan: scan or scan with overlay. A scan will scan the target environment, but will only return the system packages and configuration known to UForge. A scan with overlay will include an overlay report which details all the extra files, packages or specific configuration.

    Note

    Scan with overlay is only supported for Linux-based machines.

  2. Report the scan results to UForge AppCenter, where the platform analyzes the report. The scan differentiates between known packages and extra files. This report is transferred via HTTPS to UForge AppCenter.

  3. The results are used to build an archive. The extra files are only included in the archive if the user is performing a scan with overlay. The archive is sent back to the platform.

  4. The archive is uncompressed, and the information is stored in the database as a Scan.

  5. You can use the scan to generate machine images or imported to create a new appliance template. The generated machine image can then be published to the target environment and instances can be provisioned.

Note

When generating a machine image from an appliance template, package dependencies are calculated using the list of packages in the OS Profile. Any missing packages from the OS Profile are added prior to generating the machine image.

Warning

There may be cases where packages that are present on the scanned server have been removed or replaced in the newer version of the OS. Such packages will obviously not be present in UForge AppCenter’s package repositories, and will therefore be added to a My Software component, instead of being added to the OS Profile. Therefore, if you update the OS version when performing a migration using re-platform, and if there are such packages, you should first manually remove or replace them in the template, as instructed by the distribution vendor, before generating the machine image.

For detailed procedures on migration using Re-platform refer to the following sections: