To achieve maximum flexibility, Alter-Ego supports many migration configurations. It does this through the use of customizable settings, which contain information on the type of migration to be performed, the source and destination workgroups or domains, authorized accounts to complete the migrations, and other options.
The following is a complete list of settings used by Alter-Ego, organized by the General Settings tab on which they appear in the console window:
Profile Context Settings
Domain Change Settings
Options
Authentication
Information on user accounts used for the 5
Authentication Roles are also part of the settings. These accounts
are typically configured using the Authentication Wizard.
The 5 authentication roles are:
All profiles to be migrated on a single computer must belong to a single source context (they must all be part of the same domain or all be local accounts) and all destination users must be in the same destination context. If migrating users from more than one source context or to more than one destination context (e.g. migrating some source profiles from a domain and some source profiles from local accounts, or migrating profiles to two different domains), this must be done as separate migrations. A single migration job can be used to migrate between multiple source and destination contexts, but only one source and one destination context per computer per migration is allowed. It should also be noted that profile migration source and destination contexts are independent of source and destination domains/workgroups used for domain join. This means Alter-Ego can be used to move profiles from users in Domain A to users in Domain B while the computer changes domains from Domain C to Domain D.
Each computer can be assigned different settings, allowing you to migrate many computers using distinct migration configurations. This can be especially helpful when your migration spans diverse domains, workgroups, or numerous computers with unique configurations. However, as it is unlikely that most migrations will require unique settings for every computer, Alter-Ego provides the ability to easily configure sets of computers with similar settings through the use of groups and settings inheritance.
Groups are created through the console or during an import from Active Directory. A group collects all computers with similar settings. This may correspond to a logical or physical network divison such as a domain, workgroup, subnet, or location. A group could also cover a department requiring a similar configuration such as "Sales," "Operations," or "Executive." The groups you create may not correspond in any way to your network architecture, but could instead relate to the type of system: laptop, PC, server. Groups are fully customizable to your requirements.Groups collect together all computers which will complete the same migration, with the same settings. (e.g. Same source/destination user context, source/destination domain membership, authentication accounts, and other options).
There are two types of settings: inherited settings and custom settings. Any computer or group with settings configured on that node is said to have custom settings -- that is individual settings on that object. Any group with custom settings becomes a new settings inheritance point for all nodes beneath it in the tree. Such a group is referred to as a settings root. A computer cannot be a settings root as it cannot contain other computers or groups. All computers and groups beneath a settings root will automatically inherit settings from the settings root unless they have custom settings (which, in the case of a group, creates a new settings root). These computers and groups have inherited settings.
The initial settings in any migration are typically set using the Easy Setup Wizard. The Easy Setup Wizard creates the global settings: the settings on the All Computers group at the root of the inheritance tree. These settings are initially inherited by all computers and groups.
Custom settings are not additive with inherited settings: custom settings and inherited settings are exclusive. When changes are made to a node with inherited settings, the node is assigned custom settings which are automatically created from the inherited settings and any changes that were made, and inheritance is disrupted. If a node's settings are changed, any changes to the settings root from which the changed node was previously inheriting will not affect the changed node or any of the changed node's children. Custom settings always prevent inheritance from any node higher in the settings hierarchy. Inheritance can only be re-established by erasing the custom settings on a node by using the Inherit Parent Settings or Overwrite Child Settings buttons in the console window.
When moving a node from one location to another, nodes without custom settings will automatically inherit their settings from the settings root at the destination. Nodes with custom settings will retain them. When a group with custom settings (a settings root) is moved, it will retain its settings. Any inheriting nodes the settings root contains will continue to inherit their settings from this settings root.
See an inheritance example.