Making a virtual copy of production windchill

[msteffke]

I need to make a virtual copy of our windchill intralink server, using
vmware. Does anyone have instructions on how to do this that they
would be will to share? Want to use this as a test system.
I seem to remember being told to run this with no network support so
that it doesn't conflict with production server. Then how would you
ever connect to it?

Thanks,

Mark Steffke
Engineering System Administrator
The Delfield Company
Manitowoc Foodservice
T 989.775.9215 or 989.773.7981, ext 12484
Integrity, Commitment to Stakeholders, and Passion for Excellence


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[rporzel-5]

If you do create a clone of the server and do not change the hostname, you
can remove network support and use the host file to update the IP address.
You will be able to use Remote Desktop to connect to it and can run
Windchill from within the VM. The other, and better option, is to create
the cloned system and execute the rehost procedures to change the computer
to a real test system that can remain on the network.

Thanks,

[jzupfer]

Mark,

Regarding Ryan's suggestion, you may find the Windchill Rehosting Guide a useful resource:

http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/124969/en/WCRehostGuide101-M010.pdf

Jane

Jane Zupfer
VP, Enterprise Products Publications

T
E -

PTC.com

[BuddyHudson]

Ryan, have you actually gone completely through the rehosting procedure?
My experience was that it was a freaking nightmare! Of course I would like
to just have my IT staff just clone the VM and just give the filserver a
dummy IP, then modify the db.properties file to point to my test database.
Do you think this would work?

Regards,

Bryant (Buddy) Hudson IV
CAD/PDM Administrator Atlas Copco Drilling Solutions LLC
2100 North First Street
Garland, TX 75040 - USA

[rporzel-5]

Yes. That will work as well. The only issue is that Apache is configured
with the production Hostname. You will need to add the new IP and the old
hostname to the "Host" file on the server. This will allow you to access
the test windchill. You need to be very careful with this though. Because
you modify the host file, you will be able to access the Test windchill
from the Test server only. For all othere computers, the DNS will route to
the server it knows for that Hostname. The other issue comes in when you
try to test ProE/Creo. Beacause the two systems have the same URL, from
your client machine, you will connect to whichever Windchill the DNS routes
you too. Otherwise, you can force your connection using your own Host file
on the client machine. I just get concerned because there is a greater risk
of messing with Production data or thinking you are adding to Production
but are connected to test. If you go this route, make sure you add some
kind of Windchill Header to indicate which server you are connecting too.

Hope that helps!

[DamianCastillo]

Rehosting is a nightmare and a major flaw of Windchill if you ask me. There is no central hub for pointing windchill to a new server for setting up a Sandbox. You must go to multiple locations and change things in just the right way for the Rehosting nightmare to work for you.

We simply created a 100% clone of our Windchill environment and set it up on a different Network Segment. Then we use a host file on VMware to always launch Windchill on the segmented network on the VM only. So when I run VM and start Windchill, I am using the clone we placed on the segmented network and it never conflicts. It uses all the same names and locations for the server, but with a different Host address.

This was very simple for us to do and it's a 100% clone of the live setup.

PTC needs to fix the process of "Rehosting". Not having a Sandbox is dangerous and therefore the software should be setup to allow you to easily create a Sandbox. One central dialog that will allow you to point to a new server would make this process much easier. This is why we don't "Rehost".

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

[TerryMcFall]

I'd echo this opinion about the importance and difficulty of rehosting. Not to pile on PTC, but last year I had to rehost a half dozen times - I took extremely careful notes about each step, and every single time I had to contact PTC about why it wasn't working.

Rehosting is incredibly important; the lack of a test environment invites all sort of problems that could be easily avoided with a simple rehost procedure.

Thanks,
-Ter

[DamianCastillo]

Terrence,

I don't pretend to know much about rehosting other than it was extremely difficult for us to accomplish. Rather than having a VAR come in and do it for us, we did not want to rely on a VAR when the need came up again.

This is why we created a separate network segment that we simply point our VM too. Our Windchill is setup as a VM, so we just created a clone and moved it over to the separate segment. When we run our VM Workstation, we have the host file pointing to that other network segment which is our sandbox.

I know I may be crazy for suggesting this, but this is what I think PTC should provide.

A Rehost Control Center. It's one configuration area that has all the necessary information required to point Windchill to the sandbox. You simply point to where your Windchill Server is, Your CAD Worker if you have it, Your database, etc. When you execute this process, it automatically takes care of everything for you because it knows were all the changes need to take place internally to make the rehost work.

A simple dialog box that points to our sandbox and hit GO.

Currently you have to go many places to change and point things to the "sandbox" and if you mess anything up along the way, it does not work. Windchill runs with several technologies on the back end, but I should not have to deal with each of them separately just to create a Sandbox. Give me a control center where I can tell Windchill were my sandbox is and let it make all the internal changes from there.

The inablity for us to create a Sanbox easily, derailed our Windchill Implementation project for about 4 months and I am now having to re-learn everything from the training.

In Reply to Terrence McFall:

I'd echo this opinion about the importance and difficulty of rehosting. Not to pile on PTC, but last year I had to rehost a half dozen times - I took extremely careful notes about each step, and every single time I had to contact PTC about why it wasn't working.

Rehosting is incredibly important; the lack of a test environment invites all sort of problems that could be easily avoided with a simple rehost procedure.

Thanks,
-Ter

[TomU]

From what I understand, this functionality exists in limited form in the current release of the rehosting utility (v1.0), and will fully exist in the newest version (v2.0) due out 11/01/2013. This new version will support rename, rehost, clone, and move. It will handle vaults, clusters, file servers, visualization workers, and more. I've seen a demo and it's impressive. It changes everything that needs to be changed everywhere it exists.

The roadmap for version 3.0 includes a "Wizard-based Graphical User Interface for executing, creating, and managing rehosting configurations". There is also talk of having the ability to propagate changes back and forth between the production system and the test system(s) without doing a full blown clone. There was a great presentation at PTC Live Global (PTC User) about this.

Tom U.

[DamianCastillo]

I just got a reply from Tom and it seems that what I described is already on it's way but it's much better. 🙂

Here is the details.

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From what I understand, this functionality exists in limited form in the current release of the rehosting utility (v1.0), and will fully exist in the newest version (v2.0) due out 11/01/2013. This new version will support rename, rehost, clone, and move. It will handle vaults, clusters, file servers, visualization workers, and more. I’ve seen a demo and it’s impressive. It changes everything that needs to be changed everywhere it exists.

The roadmap for version 3.0 includes a “Wizard-based Graphical User Interface for executing, creating, and managing rehosting configurations”. There is also talk of having the ability to propagate changes back and forth between the production system and the test system(s) without doing a full blown clone. There was a great presentation at PTC Live Global (PTC User) about this.

Tom U.

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

[SimonLucas]

I would echo Tom's comments re the rehost utility if it truly does as it seemed to in the demo at PTC live.

have yet to try it ourselves, but is the ptc recommended way of achieving what you want to do.

Simon Lucas