MDM R80.x migration from hardware to software

[Paul_Warnagiris]

Hello Checkmates.  I just went to do a customer MDM migration (test in my lab) from HW>SW on an R80.10 installation.  Normally the way I do this is whether its an upgrade or a platform shift is to build out a new MDM, recreate the users, roles, passwords etc and then I import the CMA while building out the new domain.  That option is obviously no longer available.  So I started digging.  I saw this tool ExportImportPolicyPackage   as well as this link   https://community.checkpoint.com/docs/DOC-1938

However, re-establishing SIC and recreating objects are not a good option at this time.  While the customer does not do much with the MDM/global policies, they have a lot of gateways, and downtime is difficult to get.

What is the easiest way to go from R80.10 MDM on HW to R80.10 MDM on SW.  Am I just missing something?  Do I have to backup and restore the whole MDS?  If that's thats the only way that's fine, I was just not expecting that.  Does mds_backup and mds_restore even work for HW>SW?

I'm hoping there is an easy answer and I'm just missing it so hopefully its as easy as pointing me to a link.

Thanks,
Paul

[Maarten_Sjouw]

Paul,

ATM Check Point is still working on a toolset for exporting and importing single domains, from and to other MDS/SMS.

That said, the best option at the moment is to use the migration tool which is mentioned in the advanced upgrade for a MDS. mds_setup is the that you can use to create an export on the source machine and migrate import is used to import that file, this works with different versions, but only up (80.10-> 80.10/80.20/80.30 etc).
mds_backup / restore should also work but within the same version only.

[Paul_Warnagiris]

Thanks for that validation.  I'm familiar with those processes.

Paul