Cloning a vault to a new site

When the Meridian Global Collaboration Framework is deployed to a new site, if you start with an empty vault at the new site, virtually the entire source vault will need to be sent to the new site upon the first update transfer. Such a transfer can use a lot of system resources and processing time that could affect the production at both sites.

Cloning a vault is typically needed in two scenarios:

1. Multiple Global Collaboration Framework sites are already collaborating and you want to add a new site.
2. You have one vault that is not yet collaborating. You want to clone it for a different site and start collaboration so that there will be two collaborating vaults.

The easiest way to initialize the new site's vault is to make a backup (clone) of an existing vault and to restore it to the new site. Then the new site will immediately have a local copy of every document at the source site and only subsequent updates will be sent to the new site when transfers begin executing. The following procedure is appropriate when most or all of the documents should be available on all sites.

Following are the recommended procedures for cloning a vault in the preceding scenarios. For other scenarios, contact BlueCielo ECM Solutions Technical Support.

Note    Documents must not be modified while this procedure is being performed or the changes might not get replicated. Executing the commands in this procedure (GCFAdminAddNewShare and GCFAdminSetGCFLock) might take a lot of time in vaults that contain many documents. For example, it can take a whole day (24 hours) for vaults with 250,000 documents. If work areas exist in the vaults, the commands GCFAdminAddNewShare and GCFAdminSetGCFLock should be executed in all work areas that will be used with GCF.

Scenario 1:

1. Decide which vault will be the source for the cloned vault.

2. Disable the GCF export processor scheduled task at all GCF sites.

3. Check for briefcases in the folder specified by the InPath setting of the site's configuration file. If no briefcase files exist, disable the GCF import processor scheduled task. If any briefcase files do exist, run the import processor scheduled task first and then disable the GCF import processor task.

Scenario 1 and Scenario 2

Perform the following steps for the source vault in both scenarios:

1. In Meridian Enterprise Configurator, open the vault that you want to clone.
2. On the GCF Configuration tab, create a GCF share to share the vault as described in Creating and editing a share.
   • In scenario 1, add a share for the new site.
   • In scenario 2, add shares for both sites and choose the existing vault's share in the This vault share name list.
3. Create a new custom command named GCFAdminAddNewShare, apply it to all document types, but do not edit the command's VBScript code.
4. Open the file GcfAdmin.bas from the distribution package in any text editor.

   1. Set the following constants

      Const SOURCESHARENAME = "<SourceVaultShareName>"
      Const NEWSHARENAME = "<NewVaultShareName>"
      Const StartCollaborationForSource = False in scenario 1 or True in scenario 2.

      For example, in scenario 1 with a source site that has a share name of GCFSite1 and you want to create a new site with the share name GCFSiteN:

      Const SOURCESHARENAME = "GCFSite1"
      Const NEWSHARENAME = "GCFSiteN"
      Const StartCollaborationForSource = False

      For example, in scenario 2 with a source site that has a share name of GCFSite1 and you want to create a new site with the share name GCFSite2:

      Const SOURCESHARENAME = "GCFSite1"
      Const NEWSHARENAME = "GCFSite2"
      Const StartCollaborationForSource = True

   2. Find and enable (comment/un-comment) the function SetLock for your GCF version. There are three versions:
      • GCF2011 or higher with MainScript.bas (former name for script Script2010NET.bas)
      • GCF2011 or higher with MainScript_WithEvents.bas (former name for script Script2010.bas)
      • GCF2009a
5. In Meridian Enterprise Configurator, open the source vault's event script in the Meridian Enterprise Script Editor.
6. Append all of GcfAdmin.bas (including the modifications that you made in step 4) to the end of the existing script.
7. In Tables and Queries, make sure that the following tables have the option Include values when exporting configuration disabled and make sure that the option is enabled for the table GCFShares:
   • GCFCommands
   • GCFLastExportDate
   • GCFLastTransferDate
   • ThisVaultShareName
   • Transfers
8. Close Meridian Enterprise Configurator and open the vault in Meridian Enterprise PowerUser.

9. Select all folders and documents in the root of the vault and from the shortcut menu execute the command GCFAdminAddNewShare. Ignore any warning messages that state that the function is not available for folders.

   The command will do the following:

   • Set the GCFCollaboratingShares property for all documents in the vault.
   • Update the last transfer date in the table GCFLastTransferDate for all documents owned by the vault.
   • Set the last export date in the table GCFLastExportDate for all available target shares.
10. Close PowerUser and open the vault in Meridian Enterprise Administrator.
11. Back up the vault and copy the contents of the vault's Backup and stream folders to the Meridian Enterprise server at the new site.
12. In scenario 1, repeat steps 1-6, 8, and 9 for the other GCF vaults. In step 6, use the script from step 4 modified with the corresponding site share name.

Perform the following steps at the new site in both scenarios:

1. In Meridian Enterprise Administrator, restore the backup of the vault that you created in step 11 above.
2. Publish the vault as a location in Web Access.
3. Close Meridian Enterprise Administrator and open the vault Meridian Enterprise Configurator.
4. Create a new command named GCFAdminSetGCFLock, apply it to all document types, but do not edit the command's VBScript code.
5. On the GCF Configuration tab, select the current vault's share name in the This vault share name list.
6. Close Meridian Enterprise Configurator and open the vault in Meridian Enterprise PowerUser.

7. Select all folders and documents in the root of the vault and from the shortcut menu execute the command GCFAdminSetGCFLock. Ignore any warning messages that state that the function is not available for folders. The command will set the GCF lock ID for all documents that are owned by the source vault.

8. In scenario 1, enable replication for all GCF sites:
   1. Enable the export processor task.
   2. Enable the import processor task.

For all vaults that you have modified, perform the following steps:

1. Open the vault in Meridian Enterprise Configurator.
2. Delete the custom commands that you created: GCFAdminAddNewShare and GCFAdminSetGCFLock.
3. Open the vault's event script in the Meridian Enterprise Script Editor.
4. Remove the code that you appended from GcfAdmin.bas.

The cloned vault is now ready to be updated from the source site.