Simulations
- Andrea Harvey
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Overview
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. You will gain granular insight into your entire content landscape, including its structure, how old it is, what type of files it contains, what metadata it contains, and more no matter where the files are located (local storage, remote offices, user desktops, etc.). DryvIQ gathers a wide array of file statistics and visualizes the data into easy-to-read dashboards. Sort and analyze content by type, age, by last modified date, by permissions, by most shared, by external sharing metrics, and much more. All configured reports display as graphs and charts and can be exported as a .CSV file.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.Â
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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.
