Prepare for migration

Start with a pilot

Before migrating production applications or production telemetry, conduct a pilot using a non-critical application or environment. Select a pilot that represents the technologies, agent types, configurations, dependencies, and telemetry patterns expected in later waves.

Use the pilot to validate connectivity, instrumentation, telemetry, naming, configuration translation, performance impact, operational workflows, and rollback. Resolve significant issues before proceeding to a production wave.

Identify the initial migration scope

Identify the applications and environments that you want to assess during Phase 1.

Before you begin:

• Identify the applications and environments being considered for migration.
• Select a non-critical application or environment for the pilot.
• Identify business-critical applications that require special approvals or change windows.
• Record any applications or environments that are explicitly outside the initial scope.

You create the detailed application and artifact inventory during Phase 1.

Select the destination organization

Decide where Splunk Observability Cloud will receive telemetry and migrated configuration for each environment.

Determine whether your production and non-production environments will:

• Use separate Splunk Observability Cloud organizations.
• Share an organization and use teams and resource attributes to separate environments.

Confirm that the organization selected for the pilot is a non-production destination unless your migration plan explicitly approves another arrangement.

Record the destination organization, realm, environments, organization administrator, and reason for the selected approach.

Confirm eligibility and support

Obtain the confirmation of:

Assign owners

Before you begin the migration, assign the following roles and record each owner's responsibilities and contact information:

• Migration owner.
• Splunk AppDynamics administrator.
• Splunk Observability Cloud administrator.
• Application owner for each wave.
• Security and network contacts.
• Dashboard, detector, and notification owners.
• Change approver and rollback decision maker.
• Support escalation contact.

Prepare accounts and privileges

After confirming access to the source and destination environments, make sure that the accounts and credentials used for the migration have the required permissions.

Use a named user account for interactive migration tasks. If the migration workflow requires a separate credential for automation, create and manage that credential according to your organization's security policies.

For Splunk AppDynamics SaaS, confirm that the migration account can:

• Read the applications and configuration included in the migration scope.
• Read the supported Health Rules, policies, actions, dashboards, and widgets.
• Read the agent and Business Transaction information required by the migration.
• Access only the Controllers and accounts included in the migration scope.

For Splunk Observability Cloud, confirm that the migration account can:

• Access the destination organization and realm.
• Create or import the supported dashboards, detectors, charts, and integrations.
• Read the metrics and traces required to validate migrated artifacts.
• Configure supported notification integrations.
• View migration jobs, results, and available audit records.

Plan credential management

Before creating credentials for the migration:

• Assign an owner for each credential.
• Confirm where credentials must be stored.
• Define expiration, rotation, and revocation requirements.
• Use separate credentials for source access, destination access, and telemetry ingestion.
• Never include credentials in tickets, reports, screenshots, documentation, or source control.

Create and validate the required credentials during the preparation phase. For Splunk AppDynamics source access, see API Clients; for Splunk Observability Cloud access, see Create and manage organization access tokens.

Prepare for network validation

Identify every network zone from which application agents, OpenTelemetry Collectors, administrators, and Migration Tool must connect to Splunk AppDynamics SaaS or Splunk Observability Cloud.

Before starting the preparation phase:

• Identify the firewall, proxy, and network owners.
• Document the network zones containing the applications and Collectors in the migration scope.
• Confirm the process and lead time for firewall or proxy changes.
• Identify any TLS inspection or outbound traffic restrictions.
• Confirm that you can test connectivity from each required network zone.

You validate the required network paths during [Phase 2: Preparation].

Readiness checklist

• [ ] Your source environment is Splunk AppDynamics SaaS and is eligible for migration.
• [ ] The destination Splunk Observability Cloud organization and realm are identified.
• [ ] Migration Assistant is enabled for the destination organization.
• [ ] You can open Data Management > Migration Assistant.
• [ ] You have an administrator or power-user role in the destination organization.
• [ ] You can access every Splunk AppDynamics SaaS Controller and account included in the initial scope.
• [ ] You can access the intended Splunk Observability Cloud organization.
• [ ] You have reviewed the supported migration scope and known limitations.
• [ ] You have decided whether production and nonproduction environments will use separate or shared Splunk Observability Cloud organizations.
• [ ] You have assigned the migration, application, platform, security, network, change-approval, and support owners.
• [ ] You have defined credential ownership, storage, expiration, rotation, and revocation requirements.
• [ ] You have identified the network zones containing the applications and Collectors in the initial scope.
• [ ] You have identified the firewall, proxy, and network owners and understand the process for requesting network changes.
• [ ] You have identified the applications and environments for initial discovery.
• [ ] You have selected a non-critical application or environment for the pilot.
• [ ] You have agreed on the pilot's objectives and success criteria.