Combining two NPM instances into one

You won't be able to merge the data from both pollers into one database in a quick and efficient manner but you could use Orion EOC (Enterprise Operations Console) which will be your main console that provides an overview of what is happening across both poller servers. With it you can jump directly into the one or the other poller server.

Another good reason to use EOC is to allow better load balancing of polling jobs among the two servers. Contact your SW sales rep and get more details on how EOC works.

Here's the demo site for EOC if you want some hands-on experience with it before making a decision. SolarWinds EOC - Home

Thanks for the reply. We have EOC licensing already and I have been quite disappointed with it in the past and have no real plans to continue using it.

Sorry to hear that...

You won't be able to merge the two databases together or retain any historical data... All the nodes in the database(s) have a NodeID and several other attributes that are used for classifying and licensing.
Typically you would run reports for everything on the to be defunct server and export to a static readable format ie excel or pdf. One of the reports you generate would include all the IP addresses and community strings. This report would be used in conjunction with the network sonar discovery tool to add all the 'previously' monitored nodes.

I'm sorry if this isn't what you were expecting for an answer. This is the way to do it currently. You may want to contact customer support to find out whether there are other ways of doing it, merging the databases even.

Deltona

I am not as concerned about the historical data as the customizations: custom properties, custom views etc.

If your custom views are based on custom properties then "all" you'd have to do is add custom properties to the nodes and or interfaces to the newly added nodes.

Once that is done, custom views - presuming they are the same on both systems - will show the same details. If the custom views are not the same then you'd have to make sure that the database which is going to take over has the same views settings as the other database. Also, the same users on the server and in the web console, custom reports, UnDPs and saved schedules.

One of the database servers will remain in production so I guess I can pick one of the Orion install and run all the upgrades to SLX on that first. This will also ensure the database gets updated. Then back everything up and migrate the front end licensing to the new front end server. Then I just have to worry about getting all the data from the 2nd server exported and imported into the new instance.

That is how I'd do it...