Best Way to Convert P4 to Sql 2005?

[jlouie]

Hello,

We plan to convert from SC 6.1.3 P4 to Sql Server 2005. I’ve read the DB Conversion & RDBMS Support guide as well as the forum threads on conversion. I have some questions that hopefully you can help me with.

1) Do you normally convert P4 to just 1 DB on Sql Server? Or should several DBs be created, perhaps by SC modules?

2) The conversion guide mentions creating various table spaces to organize by table types. For Sql Server, the equivalent to a table space is a file group. Do you have to create multiple file groups or can P4 be converted to just the default Primary file group?

3) Folks seem to have run into many kinds of conversion issues (especially with field mapping) and have to do lots of pushes before a conversion is all successful. I’m assuming single file conversion is the recommended method - what array mapping option works best (main table, alias table, etc.)? Any estimate on how many hours or weeks I should plan for this conversion process? About how long does it take to run 1 push?

4) I’m confused about how you add new tables or fields after all P4 tables are moved to Sql Server. Do you still add new data via Dbdict only, or do you have to add to Dbdict plus manually alter the Sql Server table data?

5) After we convert P4 to Sql Server, SC will be upgraded to 6.2 and then to SM 7.1. Does anything need to be done on the Sql Server side for these subsequent upgrades?

Are there other conversion tips or major gotchas that I should be aware of? The conversion process seems like it will be a complex, painful process. Thanks so much for any assistance you can provide!

[Artur]

1 - you have to have one db, it is not possible to split it
2 - it is totally up to you. It can be primary. This is the matter of perfromance and hardware you have.
3 hard to tell. Depends on HW and how large you DB is.
4 - dbdict is the safe way.
5 - not really. It will be doable but prepare for a lot of work probably

The conversion depends on how many customisation you did. Yes, it may be complex.

regards
Artur

[harn145]

1 - you have to have one db, it is not possible to split it

Technically, you could have more then one DB, but there are only limited reasons to use it that way. And none of them are really strong.

[jlouie]

Thank you for the replies!

1) We'll just create 1 DB on Sql Server
2) We'll just plan to use the default Primary file group. The conversion guide recommends so many variations of table space allocations that it's very confusing - so we'll see how 1 file group works and tweak later if needed.
3) Since there are almost 1,000 tables in SC P4, does it really make sense to use single file conversion to map and convert tables individually especially if mostly the same conversion options are chosen? Will alot more problems occur if we tried the simpler multi-file conversion with default settings?
I'm still unsure what array mapping to use. We have ample space on Sql Server (and our P4 DB is about 3Gb-4Gb), so which array mapping option normally yields the best performance since I've heard that SC may run slower on an RDBMS? Should some P4 tables such as probsummary be mapped to a certain data type?
4) If you add a new table or new table column after conversion via Dbdict, will the Sql Server table data automatically get updated as well? Or do you have to do a single file conversion to move P4 to SQL again?
5) Since out of box, alot of customization has been done to the SC screens and panels, 2 new tables have been added and many new table fields have been added. We expect alot of work on the SC side on the version upgrades but hope that the Sql Server tasks will be minimal.

Thanks again.