One thing that a lot of ConfigMgr. admins has spent hours on, is the collection design in CM2007 (or they should have spent the hours). When designing collections in CM2007 some of the design challenges were:

  • Not being able to create folders.
  • Not being able to easily include or exclude objects from other collections.
  • Configure security on collection to a certain ConfigMgr. admin group.

In this post I will walk you thru what happens to some of your collections when you perform a collection migration. Before you start the migration, you need to know about the new collection rules in ConfigMgr. 2012. There are certain basic rules you need to understand:

  • There are separate collections for Users and Devices. You can’t mix objects the two objects in the same collection anymore.
  • There are two top collections, All Systems and All Users. Those collections can’t be deleted.
  • All collections must be limited to another collection.
  • Linked collections do not exist any longer.
  • Sub collections do not exist any longer.
  • Collections are part of the global dataset, meaning that collections will be visible at all sites.
  • Two new query rules exist, Include and Exclude.

In my ConfigMgr. 2007 site I have a collection hierarchy looking like this:

image

In my example I have a few interesting collection settings and rules, like:

  • I’m using empty top level collections, that I call (Folders).
  • Below SCCMLAB (that’s the company name), I have SL Workstations and SL Servers. All child collections are limited to those two, e.g. SL All Workstations in A01 is limited to the SL Workstations collection.
  • In the “SL All Workstations in A01” collection I have a dynamic query where I use the CM2007 site code “AO1”.

Specify the migration connection and the migration job

  1. Select the Administration workspace.
  2. Navigate to Overview, Site Hierarchy, Migration, Active Source Hierarchy.
  3. Click Specify Source Hierarchy in the ribbon.
  4. In Top-Level Configuration Manager 2007 site server type the CM2007 site server name.
  5. In Source site access accounts click Set and specify account for the SMS provider access account.
    image
  6. Click OK
    This will start the gathering process and collect data about the CM2007 hierarchy, client information and object information.
  7. To create the Migration Job, navigate to Overview, Site Hierarchy, Migration, Migration Jobs.
  8. Click Create Migration Job in the ribbon.
  9. In Name type: Collections
  10. In Job type select: Collection migration and click Next.
  11. Select the collections to migrate. In this example I select the top level collection SCCMLAB (Folder). Notice that this selection also selects two other collections.

    image

  12. I deselect migration of objects (will explain that in a later post) and click Next.
  13. Select the Default security scope and click Next (we will deal with security later).

    image

  14. In Collection limiting click Next (a feature used when migrating from a multi-site environment).
  15. In site code replacement, select PS1 as the ConfigMgr. 2012 site code and click Next.

    image

  16. In Review migration jobs, click Next.
  17. Click Next to run the migration job now.
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  18. Click Next and Close.

Let’s examine the result

Once migrated all new collections will be visible in the Assets and Compliance workspace below Device collections. A quick review shows me that:

  1. My empty top level collections are migrated over as real Folders.

    image

  2. The prompt for a new site code was due to a collection query where I used the old site code. That query is now updated with the new primary site code (notice the new site code at the end of the statement).

    image

  3. The SCCMLAB collection hierarchy in CM2007 is used to divide servers and workstations as illustrated. All sub collections are (in CM2007) limited to the SL Servers or SL Workstations collection. During the migration this will be detected and the migrated collections will automatically be limited to the top level collection.

    image
    CM 2007 collection hierarchy

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    Properties of the migrated collection, notice the limited collection.

  4. The reason for the extra selection of collections was that they were also referenced by some of my migrated collections.

Now you might wonder, Isn’t there a log file that displays all the magic behind the scenes. The answers is; Sure, the name is migmctrl.log.