As you upgrade from release to release of your Inventor platform, you typically also migrate CAD files and CAD data stored in Autodesk Vault document management solutions.
"Migration" from an Autodesk Vault perspective is twofold. Often times the change of database versions is referred to as migration. During the installation process, the Autodesk Data Management Console reports that it is "migrating" databases. However, this migration refers only to the metadata component of the Vault system where new tables and property definitions are added to the database set. During this process no managed CAD files are modified, created, or touched in any way.
Migration of your CAD data becomes a secondary operation to be completed after the database migration. This topic covers the CAD file migration.
Autodesk Vault allows support for the latest plus two previous versions of Inventor with Vault, permitting you to work with legacy Inventor formats. It is important that you make no assumption about the need to migrate CAD data.
When you migrate CAD data to the latest version of your CAD system, the latest version only of each CAD file in the Vault has a new version created. In essence every unique CAD record has a new version, increasing the filestore size by degrees.
In a design environment where item or file life cycle schemes are utilized by Vault Professional there are a number of additional file access and security considerations which to address for a successful migration of the vaulted data. We cover these considerationshere
Does Vault Data Require Migration?
Traditionally, for optimum performance migrate CAD data to the current release. However this migration is not always practical due to the size of Vaulted data. Migrating many thousands of unique CAD records can require weeks of ongoing effort, and can disrupt production work or require days of focused effort stopping productive work.
In many cases legacy data is not active in the design process. Therefore, its migration is redundant or at least of a lower priority.
The good news is that in most cases migration is not essential. Inventor does allow for on demand migration. You can open, view, and consume Inventor part and assembly files from Vault without a requirement to migrate the data, and with little impact on the model performance.
When you modify and save a file, you are prompted to migrate the affected files. These files are migrated at that point and added to Vault as a new version, since the file is modified and is a necessary version increment.
You can expect to be prompted to also migrate derived parts or assemblies (iParts or iAssemblies) when changes are made to linked files, which becomes apparent when those files are restricted or "locked" in Vault Professional. If this workflow affects you, it can require special attention. Refer to the section about locked file migration.
The final decision as to whether your company carries out a bulk migration or "on demand" file migration comes down to the size of the dataset and the resources available to complete migration. If you do choose to migrate all Vault data at once, please read on to see details on migration best practices designed to streamline this process.