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Overview
The SkySync analyzer is a powerful and incredibly fast content discovery, analysis and prediction engine that eliminates the guesswork. You will gain granular insight into your entire content landscape including its structure, the use of your files, how old and what type they are, what the metadata contains and more, no matter where the files are located—whether in local storage, remote offices or on user desktops.
SkySync gathers a wide array of file statistics and visualizes the data into easy-to-read, configurable dashboards. Sort and analyze content by physical location, type, age, last modified date, by permissions, by most shared, external sharing metrics, and much more. Any configured report can be displayed with graphs and charts, exported as a .CSV file, or utilized to initiate SkySync file transfers.
Simulation mode allows you to create a job with all desired configuration options set and execute it as a dry-run. In this mode, no data will actually transfer, no permissions will be set, no changes will be made to either the source or the destination. This can be useful in answering several questions about your content prior to actually running any jobs against your content.
Even though simulation mode doesn’t move data, platforms will identify activity on accounts during simulation mode. Therefore, your administrator should turn off security notifications on the source platform for copy jobs and both platforms for sync jobs before running simulation mode to prevent users from getting security notifications about activity on their accounts.
How much content do I have?
An important first step in any migration is to determine how much content you actually have. This can help in determining how long a migration will take.
What kinds of content do I have?
Another important step in any migration is to determine what kinds of content you actually have. Many organizations have accumulated a lot of content and some of that may not be useful on the desired destination platform. The results of a simulation mode job can help you determine if you should introduce any filter rules to narrow the scope of the job. An example would be if you should exclude executable files (.exe or .bat files) or exclude files older than 3 years old.
What kinds of issues should I expect to run into?
During the course of a migration, there are many things to consider and unknown issues that can arise, many of which will only present themselves once you start doing something with the source and destination. Running a job in simulation mode can help you identify some of those issues before you actually start transferring content. Examples can include:
Are my user mappings configured correctly?
Does the scope of the job capture everything that I expected it to capture?
Do I have files that are too large for the destination platform?
Do I have permissions that are incompatible with the destination platform (i.e. ACL vs waterfall)?
Do I have files or folders that are too long or contain invalid characters that the destination platform will not accept?
Create a Simulation Job
During the job creation workflow, the last stage before creating the job there will be an option to enable simulation mode. When a job is in simulation mode, it can be run and scheduled like any other job, but no data will be transferred.
Even though simulation mode doesn’t move data, platforms will identify activity on accounts during simulation mode. Therefore, your administrator should turn off security notifications on the source platform for copy jobs and both platforms for sync jobs before running simulation mode to prevent users from getting security notifications about activity on their accounts.
Transition a Simulation Job to Transfer Content
After review, a simulation job can be transitioned to a live job that will begin to transfer your content to the destination platform.
REST API
Creating a Simulation Job
A simulation mode job is exactly the same in every respect to a normal transfer job. The only difference is the inclusion of the "simulation_mode: true" option in the "transfer" block.
POST /jobs |
{
"name": "Simulation Mode Job",
"kind": "transfer",
"transfer": {
"transfer_type": "copy",
"permissions": "add",
"preserve_owners": true,
"source": {
"connection": {
"id": "{{cloud_connection_source}}"
},
"target": {
"path": "/SourcePath"
}
},
"destination": {
"connection": {
"id": "{{cloud_connection_destination}}"
},
"target": {
"path": "/DestinationPath"
}
},
"simulation_mode": true
},
"type": "transfer",
"schedule": {
"mode": "manual"
}
}
|
List All Simulation Jobs
Use the call below to get a list of all your simulation jobs.
GET {{url}}v1/jobs?simulation_mode=true
Disabling Simulation Mode
Once you are satisfied with the simulation results and you desire to actually perform the migration, you can simply disable simulation mode. This can be done through the "Settings Summary" tab or by running "PATCH /v1/jobs/{id}?reset=simulation". Once simulation mode is disabled, the job will execute as a normal transfer job and data will begin to transfer between the source and destination per the configuration of the job. It is important to note that once simulation mode is disabled, it cannot be enabled again.
PATCH {{url}}v1/jobs/{{job}}?reset=simulation
Creating a New Report for Simulation/Analyzer Jobs
To create a new report for simulation / analyzer jobs, you must use the corresponding job_category_id as well as simulation_mode:true parameter.
POST {{url}}v1/reports |
{
"name": "Simulation Jobs",
"created_by": "Joe Smith",
"description": "This is my Analyzer Job report",
"parameters": {
"job_category_id": 2,
"simulation_mode": true
}
}
|
Creating a New Report for Jobs that were Formally Simulation Jobs
Create two reports with the same job_category_id; one where simulation is enabled and one where simulation_mode is disabled.
Simulation Mode Enabled
POST {{url}}v1/reports |
{
"name": "Simulation Jobs",
"created_by": "Joe Smith",
"description": "This is my Analyzer Job report",
"parameters": {
"job_category_id": 2,
"simulation_mode": true
}
}
|
Simulation Mode Disabled
POST {{url}}v1/reports |
{
"name": "Simulation --> Execute Job",
"created_by": "Joe Smith",
"description": "Reports for jobs that were formally simulation jobs",
"parameters": {
"job_category_id": 2,
"simulation_mode": false
}
}
|
Run the Simulation Job
The job will appear in the simulation report. In the SkySync user Interface (UI), the job will be available on the Simulation Jobs from the Jobs page.
Disable the Simulation Job
Disable simulation mode and execute the job to transfer content. The job will be removed from the simulation report and will now appear on the new report. In the SkySync user interface (UI), the job will no longer be available on the Simulation Jobs tab; it will now be on the Jobs page and can be found by filtering the Jobs list based on the category defined.