Migrating Single to Multi Machine Enterprise - File Share Confusion

[CW-GIS]

We are migrating from a single machine deployment to a multi machine deployment. We are in Azure and have an Azure File Share connected to each machine as a drive (Z).

When installing Portal 11.4, it would not let me install the content directory to the file share drive (Z). After installation, I went to portal admin and tried to change it from System > Directories, but I get this error:

which doesn't exist, but that path also doesn't exist in the current directory.

Question: Is the Portal content directory supposed to go on the File Share? or is it just the Server configuration directory?

[SimonSchütte_ct]

Did you copy the content directory to the new location before trying to change the path in Portal Admin?
The Admin endpoint will not copy the directory for you.

"In a highly available configuration, the portal's content directory is shared between both machines.

1. On the file server, create a directory for the portal's content directory, and share it so that it can be accessed by both portal machines. For example, \\share\portal\content."

see: Configure a highly available portal—Portal for ArcGIS | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

Note: I assume you extend your current deployment to a HA deployment and need to move the content directory to a shared location.
In case you intend to migrate a normal deployment to a HA deployment (moving from another environment to a new HA environment) other steps need to be taken.

[CW-GIS]

Yes, I copied the content directory to the new location beforehand.

We are migrating a normal deployment to a HA deployment. What are the other steps that need to be taken?

[CW-GIS]

Edit to my original post: 

content/items/accountresources/0123456789ABCDEF/accountSettings

Does exist in both places (it's just deep in the middle alphabetically)

[SimonSchütte_ct]

A) Do you expand your existing environment 1 to a HA environment 1+2

B) or do you migrate to a new HA environment and tried something like this?

Depending on your setup, other workflows need to be used, for example Migrate to a new machine in ArcGIS Enterprise. 

I highly recommend you  High availability | ArcGIS Architecture Center. 

There are many things to consider, depending on what deployment/steps you took/plan to take.
Single machine/multi machine, active/passive, active/active,... probably too much to discuss in length here.

Other useful links: How to make your ArcGIS Enterprise environment robust | Esri Australia Technical Blog, Planning Load Balancer Configuration for Highly Available ArcGIS Enterprise

[BillFox]

if you are going HA, hopefully you have the option to build the new environment from scratch

like @SimonSchütte_ct mentions, a migration to that world is a very deep dive that can break a lot of things

[CW-GIS]

@BillFox Yes we are building it from scratch in a new resource group. Then after we will move content.

[SimonSchütte_ct]

Ok, this simplifies troubleshooting.
Did you specify the file share as location for the first Portal installation and it failed?
What did you paste into the Edit Directory field?

I have seen the error you get, when \, / or // instead of \\ was used or the \\content was missing.
When entering a shared network location, the connection string syntax is formatted in this way: "connectionString":"\\\\<machinename>\\arcgisportal\\content"

When configuring the Portal and you need to specify the content directory, directory formatting could also block you from using this directory (happened to me before until I noticed / instead of \). [btw. When installing using ArcGIS PowershellDSC it is easy to specify the different storage locations (->ContentDirectoryLocation).]

Documentation reference:
Configure a highly available portal—Portal for ArcGIS | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

Change the portal content directory—Portal for ArcGIS | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

[BillFox]

yep, these slash things are trial and error

\

/

//

\\

////

\\\\

....etc