This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise #7
Get excited - the focus of this edition of This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise is migrations. Now the word "migration" can be ambiguous, as it's thrown around in a variety of contexts: migrating from on-premise to the cloud, migrating from 10.5.1 to 10.7.1, migrating from one form of WebGIS deployment strategy to another, etc. Those are all valid examples of migration, but they are not the only examples of migration.
To clear up any confusion, the focus of this blog is two types of migration: migrating from ArcGIS Server to ArcGIS Enterprise and migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine. Now that we're all on the same page, we're going to be going through these two types of migrations by covering:
1. Migrating to ArcGIS Enterprise
2. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the Join Site operation
3. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the WebGIS DR tool
1. Migrating to ArcGIS Enterprise
This comprehensive video from Esri Australia provides a great list of considerations when making the move to ArcGIS Enterprise from another type of WebGIS deployment, such as a standalone ArcGIS Server site. The considerations they bring to light include thinking about your hardware if the cloud should be used, potential monitoring and backups, the need for SSL certificates, and more. This is a great resource for anybody looking to migrate to ArcGIS Enterprise or explore a deployment’s capabilities. Take a look for yourself here.
2. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the Join Site operation
This blog is a wonderful resource for those already using ArcGIS Enterprise and wanting to move their deployment to another machine (this could be due to the new machine having more available resources or a newer operating system). There are many different choices you can choose when migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine. This blog covers the use of the Join Site operation, typically used to add standby machines for highly available deployments and disaster recovery workflows. Outlining the steps of this migration workflow, including sections specific to each ArcGIS Enterprise component, this blog is a must-read for anybody looking to migrate their ArcGIS Enterprise site using the Join Site operation. Read more here in this blog.
3. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the WebGIS DR tool
Building on what was discussed in the previous blog, this blog covers a second option for migrating your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment to another machine: the WebGIS DR tool. While this utility exists to create and restore backups and maintain a replicated standby environment for disaster recovery, it can also be used to migrate our ArcGIS Enterprise environments. While more complicated than the Join Site operation discussed in the previous blog, this WebGIS DR tool has the option for you to validate whether the migration was successful before switching to the new environment. For more details on this workflow, as well as pros and cons, take a look at this blog here.
With that, hopefully, you are feeling more confident about migrating to ArcGIS Enterprise and migrating ArcGIS Enterprise deployments to different machines. As always, thank you for reading and please feel free to reach out in the comments below 
if there are any outstanding questions or comments. Be sure to check out This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro - and stay tuned for more This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise.