How to restore large data from many distant places centrally

[ashokharnal]

We have Alfresco 3.4 community edition installed at many geographically distant places. At each place the repository size varies from
20GB to 50GB. We intend to backup and bring all this data at a Central archival unit to facilitate search. All the
various places have the same content model and aspects.
The two options at the Central place are:
a. Have one Alfresco server at the archival unit for each of the places and restore the data into it. Thus
    there will be as many Alfresco servers at Archival unit as there are places.
b. Create a Multi tenant structure with one Alfresco server catering to many repositories with each one holding
   backup of one of the places.

As to the multi-tenant solution that does not seem possible because while I am able to create
a large ACP file (of size, say, 40GB), I am unable to import it into a tenant. Reasons for failure
to import (even locate) this file through Alfresco Explorer are not clear.

So the only solution appears to be install many Alfresco servers. But his will consume lots
of resources and space.
Is there some other solution possible? I will be very grateful for help.

[mrogers]

Transfer is built for this use-case…

[ashokharnal]

Dear mrogers,

Does transfer mean backup the content data (under alf_data) and mysql data and then restore both
at the archival unit or you are mentioning some other way to transfer. But if data for each server
is to be backed up and restored then for each geographical site running the Alfresco, I will have
to have one Alfresco server at the central archival unit. Is there some other way? I may mention
that at the Central archival unit search is the only motive and no editing or insertion of any new data
will be there. Incidentally there is no network connection between geographically distant places.

Kindly let me know.

[ashokharnal]

I have gone through the Transfer service link:

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Transfer_Service

But we do not have a fast Network connection to transfer such huge data (30GB).
We have a normal Internet connection over which it may take days to
transfer such data.

[ashokharnal]

Finally I have decided to host multiple Alfresco servers on one single machine.
For those who may be interested, multiple servers can be installed under various
Linux users on the same machine as follows:

Login as one of the users and run the bin file as:

$ ./alfresco-community-3.4.d-installer-linux-x32.bin –optionfile optionfile‍

Where optionfile for each user may be different as:

# For user named: Alfresco
mode=unattended
prefix=/home/Alfresco/Alfresco
mysql_password=somesecret
mysql_database_name=alfresco
mysql_database_username=alfresco
mysql_database_password=alfresco
mysql_port=3306
tomcat_server_port=8080
tomcat_server_shutdown_port=8005
tomcat_server_ssl_port=8443
tomcat_server_ajp_port=8009
alfresco_ftp_port=2120
alfresco_sharepoint_port=7070
openoffice_port=8100
alfresco_admin_password=secret
alfresco_quickr_port=6060
alfresco_rmi_port=50550
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Now login as different user (below: deo1) and run the bin file with another optionfile as:

# For user: deo1
mode=unattended
prefix=/home/deo1/Alfresco
mysql_password=somesecret
mysql_database_name=alfresco
mysql_database_username=alfresco
mysql_database_password=alfresco
mysql_port=3307
tomcat_server_port=8081
tomcat_server_shutdown_port=8006
tomcat_server_ssl_port=8444
tomcat_server_ajp_port=8010
alfresco_ftp_port=2122
alfresco_sharepoint_port=7071
alfresco_quickr_port=6061
openoffice_port=8101
alfresco_admin_password=secret
alfresco_rmi_port=50551
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

And so on for each user