Migrating Endpoint Server Resources
Over time; servers may need to be replaced. Hardware fails or gets old and Windows operating systems come to the end of their supported life cycle. Therefore, on-premises Endpoint Servers may need to be replaced and you will need to migrate an Endpoint Servers resources to a new server.
This is a multi-step process involving:
Implementation of a new Endpoint Server.
Migrating the tasks (resources) from an existing Endpoint Server to the new Endpoint Server.
Decommissioning the existing Endpoint Server.
Step 1. is covered in these two articles:
How to deploy additional Endpoint Servers - Certero Unified Platform - Certero Documentation
Once completed, log onto your Certero website and go to Administration - Endpoint Servers. Select the new Endpoint Server you wish to authorize. Right-click and choose Actions - Authorize. Your new Endpoint Server is now to begin work.
Step 2. Endpoint Servers can be configured to perform various features or tasks. Examples of these could be Network Discovery on one or more networks, running Active Directory Connectors or other types of connectors. Although it is possible to migrate these one at a time. For most Certero platforms this would be time consuming and has the potential for something to be missed.
Instead, Certero allows you to migrate all of the resources from an existing Endpoint Server to one or other Endpoint Servers. Log onto your Certero website and go to Administration - Endpoint Servers. Select the Endpoint Server whose resources you wish to migrate. Right-click and choose Actions - Migrate.
N.B. You will need to ensure that the Features enabled on the existing Endpoint Server have also been enabled on your new Endpoint Server(s). Otherwise Certero will not be able to migrate the resources to another Endpoint Server.
E.G.
You can double click on a Endpoint Server and choose the Features to see which Endpoint Server features are enabled.
Assuming that at least one other Endpoint Server has the necessary feature(s) enabled for all the resources on the existing Endpoint Server you will see a window like this.
All the resources (tasks) performed by the Endpoint Server you selected are listed. The above example is trivial but your list could be a larger, particularly if you have lots of Networks defined. For each item listed select which other Endpoint Server you want to migrate the task too. Then click Save to complete the migration.
N.B. You will also need to ensure that the new Endpoint Server(s) have the network connectivity to perform the tasks that you migrate to them. The most common example of this is Network Discovery. An Endpoint Server uses various network protocols (ICMP, SMB, SSH, SNMP) to discover IT assets on a network. Any new Endpoint Server will need to same level of network access as any existing Endpoint Server it is replacing. Otherwise, although within Certero you can migrate the task of performing network discovery to the new Endpoint Server, the actual results of that network discovery may not be the same. Your original Certero solution design documentation will list these Endpoint Server network requirements.
Step 3. Once all resources have been migrated off an existing Endpoint Server it could then be decommissioned. This involves deleting the Endpoint Server from within Certero and then removing the Endpoint Server software from the server itself.
Please see the note below regarding orphaned agents before beginning the decommissioning process.
You should not attempt to Delete the “default” endpoint server. This is the Endpoint Server that runs on the same server as the Certero application. You can easily identify this default Endpoint Server as its hostname is the same as the URL of your Certero website.
Log onto your Certero website and go to Administration - Endpoint Servers. Select the Endpoint Server you wish to delete. Right-click and choose Actions - Delete. You will need to confirm the deletion by selecting OK. The Endpoint Server will disappear from your list of functioning endpoint servers.
Log onto the endpoint server. Go to the folder where the Endpoint Server software was installed (e.g. D:\Certero\Endpoint Server). Run the file called unins000.exe to start the uninstaller. Select Yes to begin the wizard.
You should receive this confirmation once the wizard has completed.
Before decommissioning an existing Endpoint Server you should be sure that no Certero client agents are solely using that Endpoint Server. Otherwise you risk having orphaned agents i.e. Computers with the Certero client agent installed who only have connectivity to the now decommissioned endpoint server. You will not receive up to date inventory from an orphaned agent and it’s last inventory date will drift into the past within your Certero website.
Whenever a client agent successfully polls an endpoint server, a file called EndpointServer.ini is updated. This file will contain the current list of endpoint servers and the hostname(s) / IP addresses they can be contacted on. Therefore after authorizing a new endpoint server, your Certero client agents will begin to be made aware of its existence. If the Default Client Components feature is enabled on the new endpoint server, then agents can use that endpoint server to report inventory.
Exactly how long to you should keep an existing Endpoint Server online after completing Step 2 above, and before decommissioning it will vary upon your specific Certero implementation, your network setup and number of Endpoint servers. We would recommend a few days as a minimum.
Orphaned agents can always be rescued by re-deploying the client agent to them pointing them to a known endpoint server they would have connectivity too. But in most cases the need to do this can be avoided by ensuring all agents have updated endpoint server details before deleting an endpoint server.