Migrating the search index from the HCL Connections™ 5.0 or 5.5 deployment to HCL Connections™ 6.0

When you upgrade an HCL Connections™ 5.0 or 5.5 to 6.0, the index structure is the same in both releases and the index can be migrated. This means you do not need to rebuild the search index.

Before you begin

Use this approach when you migrate from Connections 5.0 or 5.5 to 6.0. If the index is not migrated as outlined in this task, then rebuilding the search index is a mandatory part of the upgrade as described in Recreating the Search index after migrating to Connections 6.0.
Note: While you perform the steps described in this procedure, the Search app is not available to your users.

Older content is not re-indexed unless it is changed; changing content triggers sending it through the indexing mechanism again to update the index.

About this task

Each node in the Search cluster maintains its own local search index. Index migration involves copying the full search index from the 5.0 or 5.5 deployment to each Search node on the 6.0 deployment. Additionally, searchable content that is extracted from files is retained on disk for reuse. This content (on the Connections shared file system) is also migrated to the Connections 6.0 deployment.

Procedure

  1. Stop all the nodes that are running the Search application.
  2. Ensure that the local index directory is cleared on each node as described in Deleting the index.
  3. Copy the search index from one of the nodes on the 5.0 or 5.5 deployment. If one or more of the nodes on that deployment was offline for a period, copy the index from the most up-to-date node. The index must be copied to the local disk location specified in the WebSphere® environment variable SEARCH_INDEX_DIR. The index must be copied to this location on every node in the Connections 5.5 Search cluster.
  4. Copy the extracted file content from the 5.0 or 5.5 deployment to the 6.0 deployment. The location of this file is specified in the WebSphere® environment variable EXTRACTED_FILE_STORE.
    Note: This location must be on the Connections shared file system so it needs to be copied once only (not locally to each node).
  5. Start all the Search nodes in the cluster.
  6. To ensure that all content is included in the indexing process, restore the full set of default indexing tasks. Refer to Restoring the default scheduled tasks for Search for instructions on running the SearchService.resetAllTasks() command.
    Note: If you configure custom scheduled tasks and do not want to restore the default scheduled tasks, and if your indexing task names specific application names (instead of 'all_configured'), then you must add the people_finder application name (added in Connections 5.0) to this list. You can update the task to include 'people_finder', by deleting it and adding it back.
    For more information about:
    • Listing existing indexing tasks by using the SearchService.listIndexingTasks() command, refer to Listing scheduled tasks.
    • Removing an indexing task by using the SearchService.deleteTask(String taskName) command, refer to Deleting scheduled tasks.
    • Adding an indexing task by using the SearchService.addIndexingTask(String taskName, String schedule, String startBy, String applicationNames, Boolean optimizeFlag) command, refer to Adding scheduled tasks.