Migration of SAS GCM on new Environment

[TahirM]

Hello,

We have recently deployed SAS GCM in our company. Now, we are upgarding our IT hardware and moving all applications hosted on current local servers to upgarded environment. We have discussed the issue with local implementation partner of SAS GCM and we were briefed that the migration activity of SAS-GCM may require downtime of 5 weeks (approximately). The communicated downtime us unacceptable for us as this will directly impact our operations. Could anyone help us to reach best possible solution without compromising the current operations' stoppage?

[SASKiwi]

What's to stop you continuing to run your existing SAS installation on the existing hardware while you do the SAS install and setup on the new hardware? When your new installation is ready then you can start migration activities while continuing to operate both.

[ArslanTahirButt]

we want to know while shifting to new hardware what is the downtime with same license key or we should have to purchase new license or any temporary license to minimum our downtime as our old hardware warranty is going to expire very soon.

[TahirM]

Thanks @SASKiwi for your response.

Our implementation partner is having understanding that a single license may not be used on two environments simultaneously. And for setting up the new environment they need to halt operations on current environment. For me its hard to digest as migration activities are common in organizations where solution are hosted on prem. and after certain time we have to upgrade hardware/software with the change in technology. Halting current Operations doesn't make sense to me. Since we have adapted SAS GCM very recently, we would definitely require support to understand and resolve the issue.

[Anand_V]

How is the migration happening, Is it going to be via migration utility or a cut over via the metadata packages? The timeline would depend on that.
You can have a parallel environment built while the old one is still in use and then decide date and time for cut over and migration the content and data to the new environment. 

[ArslanTahirButt]

our consultant told us that due to license issue you cant be run both system together , is there any temporary license type which will help us to switch from old to new hardware smoothly without a downtime (or min 1 to 2 days downtime)

[gwootton]

You should talk to your SAS account representative about what options are available to you.

[TahirM]

You mean we need to raise a Ticket to SAS for resolution?

[gwootton]

Yes, this should be discussed with SAS.

[SASKiwi]

In my experience SAS are OK with providing temporary licences for SAS software migration projects. Talk to your SAS account manager.

[TahirM]

Thanks Anand for your response. I am a functional team member (PM) and don't know much about the backend process for such migration due to hardware/software upgrade. preliminary discussion with our implementation partner implies that there might be downtime of several weeks as the license cant be used simultaneously on two similar environments i.e. Production Environment. Frankly I am unable to digest this as upgrading activities are very common in organization because after certain time you have to upgrade hardware if you are hosting solutions on prem. and compromising the Operations is not an option. If you could please elaborate in little detail that help us determining  if we are missing something.

Thank you