What would be the best /better way to transfer repository content from one Alfresco (enterprise edition) to another instance running on a different server. Currently we copy the entire Alfresco database & file system under alf_data but that needs a down time on the servers.
I would require a mechanism without down time & the repository data be copied from one instance to another. Is there any way this is possible ?
On
What is your intention? A standby system, a real copy, an external private cloud with a subset of data? If you just need a 100% clone you can script backup & restore without downtime on the source server. Downtime is limited to the db and index restore on the target system. Your script shouldn't copy life data from solr index - use the backup done by the solr backup job instead. Depending on the database you use online db backup shouldn't be an issue. Our Alfresco Virtual Appliance has preconfigured scripts and jobs for this task to start an additional alfresco instance from snapshot backups without copying the contentstore (we call this Alfresco Time Machine).
If your aim is an external private cloud server or a road warrior solution ecm4u has a commercial alfresco module to sync very efficient a subset of modified nodes including metadata/types/aspects (list of types and aspects needs to be defined). This sync provides a REST interface for automation and also manual execution from alfresco's admin console. We support mix of alfreso versions and editions. At the moment this sync is implemented as a unidirectional sync but could be extended as a bidirectional sync.
On
I recently did this task of installing 2 alfresco instances on my local running on 2 different ports. While performing some tasks, I realized that 2 instances having same Repository ID is creating issues. I was able to change the repository ID of one of them following below steps:
update alfresco-global.properties:
db.name="Add new DB Name"
(Alfresco will create a db db.name mentioned here while initializing)
and restart the server
If you are still facing issues, try deleting solr indexes under alf-data folder.
In addition to Heiko's solution, you might be interested in:
The out-of-the-box replication service, which wouldn't be good for replicating your entire repo, but can be used for replicating a handful of nodes from one server to another.
A solution from Parashift which allows one- and two-way replication of nodes between servers.
An Alfresco presentation on using Apache Camel and Apache Kafka to replicate nodes between servers. This is available through Alfresco's professional services organization, but it may make it into the product at some point. Or you could use it as inspiration to write your own solution.