What is the recommended procedure for copying data from prod to pre-prod on-prem instance?

[afielden]

We have entirely on-prem instances of ServiceNow. Therefore cloning does not work.

Before we deploy to the Prod instance, we wish to test on a Pre-prod instance, using the data of the Prod instance.

What is the correct process for copying Prod --> Pre-prod for the purposes of testing?

I'm aware of the following issues:-

• The instances have different instance names
• The instances have different instance IDs
• The KMF keystores are different

So simply copying the entire Prod database to Pre-prod will introduce problems, unless the above issues are remeditated i.e. patch up the database and copy the Prod keystore to Pre-prod.

Are there some ServiceNow recommended guidelines on this please?

[GlideFather]

Hi @afielden

there is this FAQ article: Clone FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions 

What I can tell you to focus on are excluders and preservers. That's for example if you have a server installed in TEST not to be overwritten by the PROD data etc..

EDIT: adding links:

Clone Basics 

System clone

Request a clone
Article : ServiceNow Clone Made Easy – A Practical Step-by-Step Guide  

[afielden]

Thanks but I'm afraid cloning is not an option for air-gapped on-prem instances. You may not be aware of this, but instance to instance cloning requires Internet access for a typical on-prem installation.

However our instances do not have Internet access, therefore cloning doesn't work.

Sorry should have been a bit clearer on that. But my basic question is how to implement a safe instance to instance database copy.

[GlideFather]

@afielden you are right, I didn't know about that and also overlooked the mention in your description. my bad!

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @afielden In that case, I think the best approach is either to do a manual import/export — download the data from Prod and load it into Pre-Prod.
It will be a bit hectic and error-prone, but you’ll need to decide the sequence in which the data should be migrated from Prod to Pre-Prod.