Important Tasks after Installation, Vault Creation, or Vault Migration

This section gives M-Files administrators critical information about important tasks to be done with these operations:

• M-Files installation
• Vault creation
• Vault migration (to a new location or a new database provider)

To reduce the risk of data loss, make sure that you are familiar with the information given here and that the guidance is carefully followed.

When you install M-Files:

• Make sure that the necessary antivirus exclusions are in place. See M-Files and Virus Scanning.
• For a production system, implement and test a backup policy for the master database. Refer to M-Files Backup Policy.
• Make sure that shutdowns and restarts are not forced. Refer to Do not force a shutdown of an M-Files/SQL Server process or computer.

After a vault is created or migrated:

• When you change the database engine from Firebird to Microsoft SQL Server or create a vault in that uses Microsoft SQL Server, make sure that its memory limit is set correctly. See Changing the Memory Limit for a Microsoft SQL Server Instance.
• For a production system, implement and test a backup policy for the vault content. Refer to M-Files Backup Policy.
• Make sure that the antivirus exclusions include the vault data (file data, metadata, and indexes). This is especially important if you do not use the default paths for them. See M-Files and Virus Scanning.

Periodically:

• Monitor your Firebird vault sizes and plan to change the database engine to Microsoft SQL Server according to these guidelines: Using Firebird as the Database Engine.
• Familiarize yourself with the system requirements and make sure that they are met over the lifetime of the system. When the vaults grow, the requirements change. See System Requirements and Technical Details.
• Do not do database optimization tasks manually for Microsoft SQL Server because M-Files does them. Refer to Manual SQL Maintenance.
• Use the Verify and Repair (Quick) operation. See Using Verify and Repair.
• To clean up files from destroyed objects, do a manual run of the Optimize Database (Thorough) process. See Manual Optimization.
• If the vault uses dtSearch as the search engine, rebuild the indexes. Refer to Rebuilding the dtSearch Full-Text Search Index.
  • If the vault grows to around million objects, switch to a more scalable search engine. For example, Smart Search.