Planview Portfolios and Enterprise Architecture AWS Data Center Migration

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Background Information

Earlier this year we announced that we will be consolidating the hosting for all Planview solutions to a single data center provider, AWS cloud platform. We are excited to further leverage the capabilities of AWS, the global market leader in the Infrastructure as a Service space as we move all Portfolios and Enterprise Architecture customers to AWS. For more than three years, we have successfully utilized AWS to host Portfolios and Enterprise Architecture customers in Europe (Frankfurt data center) and Asia Pacific (Sydney data center). We are already hosting new USA and UK-based customers into AWS. We are now in the process of moving customers hosted in our Element Critical Austin and Sungard UK co-location data centers to the service we have set up in AWS USA and AWS UK.

Why are we making this change?

AWS has built world-class, highly secure infrastructure, and the migration to AWS is a continued investment in security, scalability, and availability for Planview - one which will bring numerous benefits to our customers and enhance the customer experience. Some of the key benefits for our customers in using AWS are:

Physical security - AWS data centers are staffed 24×7 by trained security guards, and access is authorized strictly on a least-privileged basis
Availability - multiple geographic regions and Availability Zones allow for resiliency in the face of most failure modes, including natural disasters or system failures
Innovation – the AWS platform services will accelerate our ability to innovate and deliver new capabilities
Scalability - highly scalable managed services for databases, storage, backup, and infrastructure management

Planview has completed a thorough assessment of the migration’s potential effect on our customers’ confidential information and personal data, and AWS’s data centers are in full compliance with the privacy and security regulations and standards to which Planview is subject. We invite you to visit the Planview Trust site, which provides detailed information on how we protect our customers’ data.

How will the Data Center Move Work?

We are utilizing the expertise and experience of AWS to make this data center move as smooth and as efficiently as possible. We have carried out extensive planning, design, and testing, utilizing our colleagues in Product Development and Professional Services to factor in the impact on all the components of your service (reports and interfaces for example).

We will reach out to you to determine which scheduled time slot is appropriate for you. We will then action the data center move, at which time there will be a period of downtime when your service will not be available. The expected outage window will be determined once we reach out for the preparatory work.
In advance of the planned move date, we will initiate preparatory work that will happen in the background and not impact your current service. AWS tooling will be deployed that will, in the background, copy and then maintain a mirror of your servers in the new data center. This process will not impact your active service in your current data center. The new data center service will not be accessible to you while you are still using your current data center service.
At the scheduled move date/time we will turn off access to your service in the current data center. There will be final synchronization of data to the new AWS data center, and we will make all necessary server-level changes and make the service available in the new data center, via the same URL that you were using previously. We will carry out several checks to validate the operational integrity of your service, before confirming to you that the move is complete.
Your end users will then be able to use the service, as before.
Right after migration, end users may experience a temporary performance downgrade as various caches need to be recreated.

Customer Testing Recommendations

The methodology, tooling and processes that we are using to deliver the data center migration is designed to eliminate any issues post migration. We do understand that some customers will want to carry out some testing and validation for themselves after the migration has been completed. Below we provide some recommendations on post migration "smoke testing" for that customers can carry out. The migration of the sandbox first (normally one week before production) provides further reassurance that the migration will be issue free.

Suggested validation tests;

Log on to ensure that Single-Sign-On is working
Open the Work and Assignments/Plan screen for a single project - this will validate connectivity to the Enterprise Scheduling Engine
Open a FastTrack Analytic Report, for example the ADM10 User Last Log In Analysis Report - this will validate connectivity/communication with the Report Farm
If you have custom SSRS Reports then execute one/some of these
Check Jobstreams to ensure that none of them have stalled
Check all Jobstreams run successfully on their next scheduled execution
If you have custom integrations then monitor the next scheduled execution of the integration to ensure that it completes successfully
If any issues are encountered, then it is recommended to carry out a clear of your browser cache and then retest

Note: when testing custom reports/dashboards in sandbox it is important to test a report/dashboard that was set up and working correctly in sandbox BEFORE the migration. Frequently custom reports/dashboards are not set up in sandbox.

Managing any Issues Post Migration

We kindly ask all users to clear their browser cache before they are accessing Portfolios the very first time after the AWS migration (we had customers reporting UI issues which were caused by cached data from the old location). Reloading the page ignoring the cache (keyboard shortcut depends on browser / operating system) may already help. In rare cases clearing the entire browser was required.

If you encounter any issues following the migration then please raise a NEW case for our Customer Care team on the Planview Support Site. Please do not use the migration case to notify us of any new issues. Please include the text "Post AWS Data Center Migration" in the case title. This will ensure we prioritize cases correctly. Please raise a separate case for each issue so that we can route the case to the appropriate team(s).

Questions & Answers

Q: Will the URL that we use to access the service change?
A: No, there will be no change in the URL that you use to access the service. The changes that we make will redirect the URL to your service in the AWS data center.

Q: Do we need to be on a specific version of Portfolios/Enterprise Architecture for the data center move to happen?
A: Yes, we need customers to be on the May 2022 version or higher. We encourage customers to stay as current as possible to ensure they have the latest security updates and access to the latest features, enhancements and capabilities. If you are not already on the Continuous Cloud program (automatic monthly updates), then we recommend enrolling on this program. Follow this link for more information on the Continuous Cloud program.

Q: I’m on the Continuous Cloud program, taking monthly updates. Will this process need to stop during the data center move process?
A: No, the Continuous Cloud program can continue through the migration process.

Q: We are set up with Single Sign On. How will the move impact this?
A: The migration will not impact Single Sign On outside of the maintenance window planned for the migration.

Q: We have our Portfolios Service using Planview Admin. How will the move impact this?
A: The migration will not impact the use of Planview admin outside of the maintenance window planned for the migration.

Q: Can we move our sandbox and production servers at different times?
A: Sandbox and production servers will be prepared for migration at the same time. Different switch-over dates will be planned for the two servers, with sandbox switchover happening first and the production switchover happening approximately one week later. The sandbox environment can be leveraged to validate applicable migration activities ahead of the production switchover.

Q: How will my FTP file sharing be impacted?
A: Depending on the location where your Portfolios environments are hosted, we may share a new URL and new FTP account/s to be used post migration. We will let you know via the support case we will create for you to drive the migration activities.
In case you need to use a new FTP server, we will also create and share a new FTP account. You may also need to whitelist the new URL depending on how previous whitelisting was configured. Custom integrations will most likely be impacted if the FTP site changes. The Planview Professional Services Global Integration Services (GIS) team will be assisting with this. Customer side changes will also be required to update integrations to use the new FTP site.

Q: Will there be a service outage when we move?
A: Yes, we anticipate a downtime period for the switch-over step, that will last 3 hours max. We will inform each customer through the support case once we start the final cutover activities and once the final cutover is completed.

Q: Will our scheduled job streams be impacted?
A: During the switchover to your new instance, the scheduled jobs will be stopped by the Planview Migration Team and will start again once the migration is complete. In case you have a jobstream scheduled to run while the final switchover is in progress (so, while your environment is down) it will, of course, not be executed. It will then either be executed on the next scheduled time or you may execute the jobstream manually post migration.
We will work with you to ensure that job-stream based integrations are carefully managed through the switch-over process.

Q: We have custom SSRS reports and PowerBI dashboards, how will these be impacted by the move?
A: Your reports will not be impacted by the move as long as they were fully functional ahead of the migration. Thus, we highly recommend checking / cleaning up reports / dashboards ahead of the migrations.
Please note, that some meta data of your report files (e.g. timestamp information like "Last Modified") will change as we will copy your report files from the Report Server used in the old data center to the Report Server used in the AWS data center.

Q: We develop our own custom SSRS reports. Will the report development process change after the data center move?
A: Your report developers will need to access a different Report Server in Report Builder after you have moved data. Customers will need to ensure that they work with their internal network teams to whitelist the new Report Server URL. We will share the new Report Server URL through the support case (as it depends on the location of the data centers).

Q: We utilize report subscriptions. Will these be impacted by the move?
A: Report subscriptions will be migrated by the Planview migration team, the Planview team will reach out if we believe there will be any impacts that require interaction from your Portfolios Administration users. Please be aware that old/stale report subscriptions might fail to migrate. Thus, we highly recommend checking / cleaning up report subscriptions ahead of the migrations.

Q: We have custom integrations that have been developed for us by the Professional Services team. How will these be impacted by the move of data center?
A: The integrations will be migrated by the Planview Migration Team. The Migration Team may need some assistance to validate the integrations are still working as expected as the Planview team does not have access to validate some aspects of customer integrations.

Q: We have built our own integrations using the web services / APIs. What will be the impact on these?
A: We recommend that customers stop web services / API activities during the switch-over. Following the switch-over the web services / APIs will be available on the same URL.

Q: We are copying our production database into our sandbox environment regularly. Is there any impact?
A: While your sandbox and production environments are located in two different data centers (usually for approx. 1 week), copying databases across environments / data centers will not be possible. Please make sure that such database copies will not be triggered in this period.
We also ask customers to not copy databases within the last 24 hours ahead of a migration (as this may cause massive impact on the server replication already in place ahead of the migration).

Q: Can I request a change to my hosting region as part of the move?
A: Customers wanting to change their hosting region, for example, moving from US based hosting to EU or AsiaPac based hosting, need to make this request (via a Customer Care case), outside of this data center migration process. This process is focused on moving data center, but remaining in the same hosting region.

Q: Can I request a change to my URL as part of this process?
A: Changing the URL used to access Portfolios and Enterprise Architecture system is not possible as part of this data center migration process. If you want to change your service URL then please raise a Customer Care case and we will discuss options.