Server to RelativityOne data migration

This page guides you through steps and considerations when moving data from Relativity Server to RelativityOne. It covers the following topics:

RelativityOne Data Migration Program
Planning the data migration
Running a Data Migration Pilot
Executing a Data Migration Plan
Data migration resources

The goal of this page is to provide you with the foundational information you’ll need to execute a successful data migration following Relativity standards.

RelativityOne Data Migration Program

The RelativityOne Data Migration Program provides you with guidance, training, and advice on moving case data to RelativityOne from any e-Discovery platform. Data Migration projects are led by members of the Cloud Services team. The team reviews the project and develops a plan that is based on your needs and resources.

Relativity’s data migration program is organized into distinct phases that have helped customers move hundreds of PB to RelativityOne. Each phase is essential to ensure successful data migration.

Plan—the first phase of the project where the migration plan and strategy are developed. The Relativity and your migration teams are brought together, and initial assumptions about how the migration will operate are documented.
Pilot—the second phase of the migration is where all the assumptions made in planning are tested. Sample workspaces are migrated to RelativityOne, baselines are established, and assumptions are reassessed. It is vital to complete and spend a thorough amount of time in this phase. The most successful migrations have involved a thorough and well documented pilot phase.
Migration Wave—the phase of the project where data is being moved, progress and performance are documented, and any issues are addressed by a combination of Product Support and other teams with creativity and results.

Most customers complete a data migration project by following the plan developed in cooperation with the Cloud Services Specialist. Other customers have engaged one of Relativity’s many service providers to assist or run the project.

The Data Migration Program consists of the following:

Cloud Services Specialist assigned to work with you through the life of the migration.
Review of the customer’s data footprint and working with the customer to develop a plan for moving data.
Training on the Relativity applications that will be used during the data migration.
Guidance on issues as they arise based on the experience of assisting hundreds of customers moving to RelativityOne.
Resources from Engineering, Customer Support, or Product Management to help with unique or customized considerations for your migration.

When planning a data migration, it is important to consider all aspects of what a migration involves. Listed below are key considerations that will impact the plan and timelines for the project.

Case Priority and Status
Size (number of files, file sizes, SQL sizes, etc.)
Download/upload speed
Schedule including any downtime
Staffing

Migrating from Relativity Server to RelativityOne is a complex and critical project requiring thorough planning, stakeholder engagement, and technical readiness. Planning the data migration, Running a Data Migration Pilot, and Executing a Data Migration Plan sections offer a detailed, step-by-step framework designed for both internal teams and external customers to ensure a smooth and successful migration with minimal surprises and downtime.

Planning the data migration

When planning a migration, the following stages must take place:

Preparing Migration Team
Preparing Server environment
Planning the data migration
Other considerations

1. Preparing Migration Team

A successful migration begins with early, collaborative engagement with Relativity and the customer. Relativity’s customers have had success in building out teams with the following roles. Some team members may play one of the roles or all the roles based on team organization.

Data Migration Champion: One of the hallmarks of success for a Server to RelativityOne migration is a knowledgeable and motivated Customer Migration Champion. This person will determine the priority and pace of moving workspaces from Server to the cloud. They can help unlock internal barriers in ensuring the migration is finished in time to meet organizational deadlines.
Technical Lead: A team member that can bring together the subject matter experts in the organization to optimize the Server environment, ensure network reliability, install the necessary applications on workstations, VMs, and agent servers, and find the fastest way to move data out of the organization.
- Data Migration Project Lead: A team member who will work directly with Relativity to direct the project, provide feedback, and partner in creative problem solving with Relativity experts.
- Data Migration Assistants: Individuals who will carry out the work of migrating the workspaces to RelativityOne, resolving any issues with Relativity Support, and running validation once the workspace is restored to Relativity.

Estimates of the time commitments team members are expected to make are listed below. The major tasks are estimates based on Relativity’s work with customers.

Phase	Tasks	Estimated time commitment
Plan data Migration	Assemble the team that will plan and execute the migration, including contacting Relativity Account team for assistance	1 hour
	In your Server instance, run Billing Statistics – Case Rollup Script. For details, see Billing statistics - case rollup.	1 hour
	Review and develop the migration plan	4 to 8 hours
	Document performance and progress assumptions	2 to 6 hours
Pilot data migration	Select sample workspaces that will test the migration plan	1 to 2 hours
	Train on RelativityOne data migration products	2 to 3 hours
	Run sample workspaces through the full workflow	6 to 8 hours
	Document performance of sample workspaces	1 hour
	Finalize the migration plan and strategy	1 hour
Migration wave	Migrate workspaces	10 to 40 hours per week
	Weekly check-ins with Relativity Migration Specialist	15 minutes to 25 minutes per week
	Resolve technical issues as they arise	TBD
	Celebrate successful migration from Server	Forever

2. Preparing Server environment

An efficient and effective migration to RelativityOne depends on a performant and appropriately scaled Server environment. It is essential that each step listed below is followed to ensure a smooth transition to RelativityOne.

Partner with your Relativity Cloud Services Specialist to help guide you through each of these steps and to help coordinate Relativity teams and resources to assist you and your team.
Follow the directions on Port and Whitelist configurations on Relativity Community. See the Community article Data Transfer Tools: Required Ports.
Prepare the Server Environment for ARM and Migrate optimization using this checklist. See the Community article ARM & Migrate: Migration Optimization Considerations.

Beyond essentials, several advanced strategies can accelerate or de-risk migrations, including pre-staging data in Azure, parallelizing from multiple locations/servers, maximizing concurrent transfers and jobs, infrastructure boosts, advanced scripting/automation, and real-time monitoring dashboards. These enhancements, while optional, are often critical for large or time-sensitive migrations and should be reviewed with a Relativity expert.

Additionally, Relativity undertakes several internal steps to support large migrations, including scaling up RelativityOne environments, applying the latest updates and patches, increasing platform limits, optimizing for large restores, and establishing dedicated support and monitoring channels. A team of Relativity experts can be assembled to meet any large and complex data migration challenge.

For large, complex migrations, complete the Large and Complex Workspace form. This form alerts internal teams of your migration and kicks off several processes in RelativityOne to prepare for your data migration. See the Community article Contacting Relativity for Large and/or Complex Projects.

3. Planning the data migration

Migrating data to RelativityOne is a complicated process. Planning requires considering all aspects of what a migration involves. Listed below are key considerations for a data migration project.

Case priority and status
Size (number of files, file sizes, SQL sizes, etc.)
Download/upload speed
Schedule including any downtime
Stakeholder communication and buy-in
Staffing

The team has guided numerous customers through data migrations of all sizes and strongly recommends these key steps to complete the migration by your deadline.

Identify largest workspaces:
- The team’s number one recommendation is to identify the largest workspaces on Server. In many cases, customers do not need a report to identify their largest workspaces. However, the Billing Statistics – Case Rollup Script can provide a comprehensive guide to your Server footprint. Following the Files First Workflow is the number one way to ensure your project is completed on time.
- Review the Using Migrate (Files first workflow).
Determine the disposition of your other workspaces. All workspaces are restored as review workspaces in R1. You will have 48 hours to move a workspace to Repository or Cold Storage. The disposition of these workspaces will help you allocate the resources you need to execute the active case or archive strategy.
- Review Workspace—the workspace is in review or active status and will need to be accessed by review teams.
- ECA/Repository—the workspace is only being used as part of ECA review or a repository for other workspaces.
- Cold Storage—the workspace needs to be available on RelativityOne but can sit in a nearline storage.
- Not moving to RelativityOne—the workspace will continue in Server until it is closed or until the case is no longer active.
RelativityOne has multiple tools that can be used as part of a migration strategy. Consider the following strategies as part of your plan:
- Migrate—Relativity’s migration application that reduces the clicks and the workload when moving data to RelativityOne. Migrate can be used for any size data migration and requires setup in Server and in RelativityOne.
- ROSE & ARM—Relativity’s legacy solutions that are more manual. These solutions can be part of a multiple pipes scenario where you are maximizing the various methods to get data to RelativityOne quickly.
- Files First Workflow—the Files First Workflow can be used with Migrate or ARM. The workflow helps to manage large workspaces and workspaces that cannot be offline for a significant period of time.

Developing a Data Migration Plan

The Cloud Services team helps you plan and execute their data migration. Planning involves developing a prioritized, dated migration schedule with formal sign-offs from stakeholders, often organized in waves. You can use Relativity provided planning tools to make decisions about how and when each workspace will be migrated. These tools are provided by Cloud Services and they include an Excel spreadsheet and a RelativityOne application.

The primary product that you should use for all migrations regardless of their size is Relativity Migrate. Using Relativity Migrate is the easiest method for moving workspaces from Server to RelativityOne.

Considerations for making decisions on each workspace are listed below.

Consideration	Determination	Goal	Strategy
Case activity – how active is the case	High activity	Reduce disruption to case teams	Relativity Migrate with Files First Workflow Relativity Migrate later after establishing baselines and processes
Case activity – how active is the case	Low activity	Test pilot criteria and avoid disruption	Relativity Migrate as part of first wave to establish baselines
Case size – how large is the case	Large	Speed to transfer	Relativity Migrate with Files First Workflow
Case size – how large is the case	Small	Ease of migration	Relativity Migrate with multiple workspaces in jobs
Case priority – how important is the case	High importance	Reduce disruption to case teams	Relativity Migrate with Files First Workflow Migrate later, after establishing baselines and processes
Case priority – how important is the case	Low importance	Ease of migration	Relativity Migrate with multiple workspaces in jobs
Manual effort in managing the case	High effort	Utilize R1 automation tools and products	Prioritize these cases first Relativity Migrate with multiple workspaces in jobs
Manual effort in managing the case	Low effort	Can stay in Server	Relativity Migrate with multiple workspaces in jobs

4. Other considerations

Before Migrating your data from Server to RelativityOne, consider also the following aspects:

Change management

Change management plays a critical role in a Server to RelativityOne data migration, ensuring that all stakeholders are prepared for new processes, technologies, and workflows. Effective change management helps mitigate resistance and confusion by providing clear communication, training, and support throughout the migration. By aligning teams and establishing transparent procedures, your organization can minimize disruptions to ongoing cases and maintain productivity during the transition.

Additionally, proactive change management enables the identification of potential risks and the development of strategies to address them, ultimately contributing to a smoother and more successful migration experience.

These are key factors in successful change management and Relativity can offer assistance on some of them:

Engage all stakeholders early to secure their full support.
Communicate updates and changes to team’s processes.
Engage team members on new products, such as Relativity aiR products.
Identify and address migration risks with mitigation strategies.
Align all teams and establish a clear migration plan together.
Monitor progress and adjust plans as issues arise promptly.

Contingency planning

Contingency planning is essential in a Server to RelativityOne migration because it provides a safety net for unexpected challenges that may arise during the process. Despite meticulous preparation, unforeseen issues such as network outages, data integrity concerns, or system incompatibilities can disrupt the migration. Robust contingency planning safeguards the success of the migration and helps maintain continuity for ongoing cases.

The following processes are used to identify risks and develop mitigation strategies:

Early Stakeholder Engagement: Relativity encourages customers to engage all stakeholders early in the migration process.
Comprehensive Communication: By utilizing project charters and a regular cadence of check-ins, Relativity supports customers by promoting regular communication of updates and timely intervention when something goes awry.
Pilot and Partnership Support: Relativity partners with customers during the pilot phase to test migration strategies, uncover bottlenecks, and work with internal teams to address technical blockers.
Project Planning: Identifying risks and developing mitigation strategies is a key part of Relativity’s project management and the development of a Project Charter.

Running a Data Migration Pilot

Pilot is an essential phase of executing your data migration. It is a step that some customers skip as they want to get started executing the migration as quickly as possible. It is strongly recommended to complete the pilot to identify risks, risk mitigation strategies, establish early baselines, identify bottlenecks in the process, and ensure the full training of the team.

Partnership with Relativity is essential in this phase. The team can identify blockers and work with internal Relativity teams to clear those blockers. The team can assist your migration team on requests to make to your IT to improve networks speeds, server architecture, or port configurations, etc.

Pilots accomplish several important goals to prepare for the migration:

Ensure Server/RelativityOne environments are ready: The pilot will measure that the preparations that have been discussed have been executed and everything is performing as expected.
Establish baseline metrics: The speeds to archive, transfer, and restore a workspace will determine the schedule and expected outcomes for the migration.
Establish team alignment: A Server to RelativityOne data migration is complex and dependent on multiple teams working together. A pilot will ensure that team members understand their roles and responsibilities.
Refine processes: The tools that are used for a migration are easy to use and easy to develop expertise. The steps for preparing workspaces, executing the plan, and establishing expectations with other team members can be tested and refined during the pilot.

A good pilot will test and document the following key items.

Archive, Move and Restore setup
Pilot item	Expected result	Required remediation
Port 443 is open and is not being throttled.	Port 443 is clear and is optimized for the migration.	Work with IT teams and Relativity to clear any blockers.
ARM staging location has enough space to create ARMS.	The storage space will cover the largest workspace archive.	Work with IT teams to add more storage or find another location. Use Files First workflow to reduce size of the archive.
Optimization Guide is followed, and changes have been executed.	Advice by Relativity has been followed and the Server environment is ready to go.	Work with IT teams and Relativity to clear blockers, understand the components of the checklist, and have a fully performant environment.
Complex workflows or technical solutions are tested.	The custom workflow is working as expected and delivering expected results.	Work with IT teams and Relativity to tweak the workflow and make changes to the product or Server environment.
R1 has been optimized in accordance with the Large Workspace request.	The number of agents and other R1 resources have been aligned to create a performant restore environment.	Work with Relativity to bring the R1 instance into alignment with Relativity’s best practices.

Baselines must be documented during the pilot. This documentation of baselines allows teams to better understand how the migration is going and whether it is on track or off track. It can also inform scheduling and set expectations with case and review teams. At a minimum, Relativity recommends testing each one of the items listed in the table below for at least one workspace. If you have workspaces that lean heavily toward one end of the spectrum, it is recommended to run several samples to get the most accurate baselines. The status of each of these items should have “Green” status and be ready to go before moving to migration.

Sample item	Speed to archive	Speed to move	Speed to restore	End to end speed	Expected end to end speed	Status	Pass QC process
Large workspace
Medium workspace
Small workspace
Files first workflow

Executing a Data Migration Plan

The partnership between you Relativity has reached its most important phase. In this phase of the project, your migration team has developed their plan and migration strategy, tested that plan in a pilot, and worked with internal teams and Relativity to set up the Server environment, the network, and the RelativityOne instance for success.

Key phases in the migration are listed below, and the roles of the team are established.

Migration workflow	Expected outcomes	Team responsibilities
Kick off migration project	The initial workspaces in the migration plan are set off.	Customer: Confirm pilot expectations are being met or exceeded. Work with Relativity to resolve items that are below expectations. Relativity: Monitor the migration in Relativity dashboards to ensure that pilot expectations are being met or exceeded. Work with internal teams to resolve any issues that are occurring.
Migration waves	Each wave of the migration is executed.	The team roles remain the same throughout the project.
Validation check	Each wave of the migration is validated.	The team roles remain the same as above throughout the entire project.
Team check-ins	Weekly check-ins with Relativity team leads and customer leads.	Both teams: Identify recurring issues or major issues. Relativity escalates any known issues with internal process to get prompt resolution. Reporting back to champions and stakeholders for the project.
R1 has been optimized in accordance with the Large Workspace request.	The number of agents and other R1 resources have been aligned to create a performant restore environment.	Work with Relativity to bring the R1 instance into alignment with Relativity’s best practices.

Data migration resources

The following list additional resources for considering when performing data migration into RelativityOne:

Migrate tool—see Migrate.
Text migration checklist—you may want to run the Breakage Report pre-migration as prerequisite to ensure you have fixed any saved searches, indexes, and custom objects that may no longer function correctly after migrating to RelativityOne.
User Group Sync considerations—see Relativity User and Group Synchronization.
Workspace Portal considerations—see Workspace Portal.
Optimizing ARM settings for speed—you may want to investigate how to optimize your ARM settings to enable a faster migration experience. See Optimizing ARM settings for speed.
Data transfer setup, tools, and common workflows—see Data Transfer.
RelativityOne data transfer training webinar—see Relativity Learning website for various webinars.

Also, you can exploit to the Community article Data Migration Checklist – Server to RelativityOne Migration.