XM to XM Cloud Migration tool - 2.1 - Introduction

XM Cloud: Sitecore’s cloud-native, SaaS enterprise-ready CMS that creates content once and delivers across any channel for unforgettable customer experiences. So many years, Sitecore CMS has been deployed in On-Prem and PaaS. Migration from one On-Prem to another On-Prem was harder but doable using direct database access where we can backup and restore it in the target environment and migrate the content. With XM Cloud as a SaaS product, this is not possible anymore. We need certain tools which can access XM Cloud SaaS platform and migrate the content. One of the tool created by Sitecore is XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool. It was first introduced in 2023 with the aim of migrating a large chunk of content (as-is) from On-Prem to XM Cloud. 

XM Cloud Migration Tool Image (AI-Generated)

XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool - v1 (Deprecated)

XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool version 1 was introduced in 2023. 

• Supports Sitecore v10.1+
• On-Prem only
• Uses Sitecore Content Serialization (SCS) and Sitecore CLI under the hood

This tool worked but it was slow since content needs to be serialized in the source system, migrated and then pushed into the target system. Many Sitecore customers who are using either in 8x or 9x are not able to use this tool for their XM Cloud migration. 

XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool - v2.1

The newly introduced v2.1 during the Sitecore Symposium 2024 has significant improvements and features. 

• Supports Sitecore v9.1+
• On-Prem and PaaS 
• Uses Google's Protocol Buffer format (Protobuf)
• No longer dependent on Sitecore CLI or Sitecore SCS.
• Dependencies are installed using a Sitecore package. 
• Dependencies are contained in a single folder (easier to uninstall)

Essential Facts to Be Aware Of

• Before migrating content, templates need to be migrated first. 
• Take caution in migrating System folders. Migrate only custom created items. 
• Supports only migrating media items stored in database or Azure blobs.

Though this tool was created by Sitecore, it is not well-documented in the Sitecore documentation portal (don't know the reason 😊) but markdown are available in the tools download zip. You can download the tool here. 

In the next article, we will discus on installation and uninstallation.