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Kevin Hardy
Kevin Hardy
Ninth Anniversary 25 Likes 10 Comments Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion

What are some advantages/disadvatages moving Raiser's Edge NXT to the Azure environment? Will end users see any difference? Or are there just more tools for db admins (easier access to db backups/SQL)? Will Blackbaud still perform automatic updates to the RENXT software? How long does migration take? How does this affect the DB view? With this affect any operations with Online Express?

I'm trying to see if this is worth exploring with the team.

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  • Daniel R. Snyder
    Daniel R. Snyder Community All-Star
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    @Kevin Hardy Look at this discussion as well, but we found the transition to be seamless with no impact on our work at all (we do not have a lot of OLX forms, but they were fine in the transition). The other discussion has a few mentions of slower export times but it is not something that we have noticed or we are just used to them by now.

  • Tatyana Leifman
    Tatyana Leifman
    Tenth Anniversary 25 Likes 10 Comments Photogenic

    @Kevin Hardy Others have already spoken about differences between Azure and BB hosting in relation to export/query/report timing, ease of migration, terminating sessions (which is a great feature though I wish I could still terminate other users' sessions as I could when we were self-hosted). As to your other questions: there are no extra tools for db admins as far as I can tell. There is no access to SQL directly, you would have to request/set up delivery of backups. And I don't think access to the backup is any easier, you have to request one (or set up a schedule to receive one regularly) and pay for it. BB does perform automatic updates to RENXT on Azure, and rolls out new features. And it does not affect db view. We don't use OLX so I can't speak to that.

  • Nicole Holt
    Nicole Holt Community All-Star
    Ancient Membership 100 Likes 100 Comments Photogenic

    @Kevin Hardy We had the transition a few months ago and I have not seen any change in functionality at all. Migration took a couple hours (and took less time than was scheduled). No changes to DB view--no additional tools, but no losses either. We have a bunch of OLX forms that were also unaffected. Basically, no change on our end (although I hope being off the Boston server will make the holiday appeal time less…exciting).

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