Migrate to Microsoft SQL Server

M-Files uses Firebird as the default vault database engine. It is recommended, however, to use Microsoft SQL Server as the database engine for vaults that contain several hundreds of thousands of objects. If a vault has originally been set up to use Firebird but the number of objects in the vault has significantly increased, it might be beneficial to have the vault use Microsoft SQL Server as the database engine instead. You can migrate your vault database from Firebird to Microsoft SQL Server via M-Files Admin.

Note: You can only migrate the document vault database engine from Firebird to Microsoft SQL Server. Migrating from Microsoft SQL Server to Firebird is not supported.

Before you begin

Steps

To migrate your vault database from Firebird to Microsoft SQL Server:

  1. Open M-Files Admin.
  2. In the left-side tree view, expand the desired connection to M-Files Server.
  3. Still in the left-side tree view, right-click the vault of your choice and select Operations > Migrate to Microsoft SQL Server...
    The Document Vault - Microsoft SQL Server dialog is opened.
  4. To the Server name field, insert the connection address to your Microsoft SQL Server, such as mysqlserver.mydomain.local.
  5. To the Database name field, insert the name of the database to be created for the vault.
    It is recommended to use the same name as the vault has on M-Files Server.
  6. Fill in the credentials (the Administrator credentials and Basic user credentials sections) in one of the two following ways:
    Option Steps
    Enter the credentials for a login that has the sysadmin server role on your Microsoft SQL Server, giving M-Files Server the rights to make the necessary migration-related operations.
    1. To the Administrator credentials section, insert the credentials for a login that has the sysadmin server role on your Microsoft SQL Server.
    2. For the Basic user credentials section, select the Use an automatically generated login option.
    Manually create the Microsoft SQL Server database and logins (without the sysadmin server role) and use the non-sysadmin credentials for M-Files Server.
    1. By using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, create an empty database for the vault.
    2. Still in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, create two logins without the sysadmin server role, for example User A and User B.
    3. Back in M-Files Admin and the Document Vault - Microsoft SQL Server dialog, enter the credentials for User A to the Administrator credentials section.
    4. For the Basic user credentials section, first select the Use an existing login option and then enter the credentials for User B.

    The easiest way is to select the first option, and to let M-Files Server make all the necessary changes on your Microsoft SQL Server. In some cases, however, system administrators may need to withhold Microsoft SQL Server sysadmin credentials from M-Files Server. In these cases, the vault database and the Microsoft SQL Server logins need to be created manually (the second option).

    M-Files Server uses the basic user credentials for almost all vault operations, and the administrator credentials – in addition to creating the database and the logins – for some of the maintenance operations.

  7. Optional: Click File Data Location... to specify the location for the file data of your vault.
    In the File Data Location dialog, you can select to store the file data in the Microsoft SQL Server database (the first option) or to have it remain in its current file system folder (the second option).
  8. Optional: Click Test Connection to test the connection to your Microsoft SQL Server.
  9. Once you are done, click OK.
    A warning dialog about the irrevocability of the operation is shown.
  10. Click Yes to close the warning dialog and to start the migration process.

Results

Once the migration process is complete, the database of your M-Files vault is located on the Microsoft SQL Server that you specified.
© M-Files Corporation 2016
Last updated 10/2016