Business Central - The Cloud Data Migration Tool - Roberto Stefanetti Blog

Business Central – The Cloud Data Migration Tool

The Cloud Data Migration Tool

Customers running their workloads on-premises can migrate to Business Central online by running the cloud migration tool; the same tool can also be used to set up a connection to the intelligent cloud but still remain on-premises.

“Data Migration Tool” page link https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/administration/migration-tool

HOW SYSTEM WORKS

ASSISTED SETUP – PAGES & STEPS TO MIGRATE ON CLOUD!

The assisted setup guide consists of pages that take you through the process of connecting your solution to the Business Central cloud tenant.

ASSISTED SETUP

Product selection

On this page, specify the on-premises solution that you want to replicate data from. All supported sources will appear in the list. If you don’t see your product, navigate to the Manage Extensions page, and then verify that the intelligent cloud extension for your on-premises solution is installed.

SQL Connection

If the product you selected requires a SQL connection, this page will be presented. Other source applications may require different information to connect to them. This page will display the connection information based on the product that you specified in the previous page. This is defined from the installed extensions for the product you have selected.

Self-Hosted Integration Runtime (SHIR)

This is the service will allow access to the Azure replication services to your on-premises SQL Database during the migration process. Follow the instructions on this page to install the Self-Hosted Integration Service (SHIR) to a local machine.

Companies Selection

You will be provided with a list of companies from your on-premises solution, or source. Select the companies you would like to migrate data for. If the company does not exist in your Business Central tenant, it will be automatically created for you.

Enable & Scheduling Migration

The final page in the wizard allows you to enable the migration process and create a schedule for when the data migration should occur. These settings are also available within your Business Central tenant on the Cloud Migration Management page. You have the option to schedule migrations daily or weekly. We recommend that you schedule your data migration for off-peak business hours.

Let’s start from “ASSISTED SETUP”

Open “SET UP CLOUD MIGRATION”

Cloud Data Migration Setup

Choose Business Central Release (16 or 15) – (Current or Previous)

Define:

SQL Server (or SQL Azure) database connection string
An Integration Runtime Name

You can define a new Integration Runtime Name (if you don’t already have one)

SQL Server- SQL Azure Connection String sample

Server=SERVER\INSTANCE;Database=DATABASENAME;UserID=xx ;Password=xxxxx;

Pay attention to:

TCP Network Active (activate all network interfaces if you have connection problems), check TCP Ports
Check Firewall and rules (or disable firewall)
Check for SQL Named Instance, use “\\” (double slash) separator “to avoid escape error on Json”

…and Test always connection!

…Now assign an Active Integration Runtime Name

Integration Runtime Name Example

A name like this “msweua6461tf89X8X7”

System requirements – check for these:

To connect to the cloud through Business Central, the on-premises solution must use SQL Server 2016 or a later version, and the database must have compatibility level 130 or higher. Sql Server data compression available for Business Central v16 demo database.

EXAMPLE SCENARIO