What to consider

What gets migrated and what does not?

XProtect VMS is an altogether different platform. You can migrate some of your existing XProtect Professional VMS configuration for reuse in XProtect VMS with the Milestone Migration Assistant Tool.

Gets migrated	How	Does not get migrated	What then...
Cameras and other hardware devices	Milestone Migration Assistant Tool	Camera recording settings	You must reconfigure in XProtect Management Client Detailed XProtect VMS documentation is available on our website (https://doc.milestonesys.com/)
Users		Scheduling, alarms and events, maps
XProtect Smart Client views		All history of alarms and events are not available because the event server is replaced

Camera settings are maintained, because they are already stored in the cameras with XProtect Professional VMS. For more information about device packs, see Can I reuse existing cameras?

In XProtect VMS, you can group cameras in device groups. One approach for grouping cameras is by camera types because then you can configure common settings for all cameras within a group in one go.

In XProtect VMS, all users must be added to a role. Roles determine which features a user can access. Roles with appropriate permissions must be defined through XProtect Management Client. Once roles are defined, you can add users to the roles from Active Directory, or create basic users.

To ensure compatibility with XProtect VMS products and the features they offer, XProtect Smart Client users must upgrade their XProtect Smart Client to the latest version after the migration.

If you keep the XProtect Professional VMS system running because XProtect Smart Client users need access to old recordings, XProtect Smart Client users must keep the old XProtect Smart Client version.

Can I reuse existing cameras?

Before migrating, you must verify that the XProtect VMS system also supports the cameras used in your XProtect Professional VMS system. You can verify supported hardware on the Milestone website (https://www.milestonesys.com/support/tools-and-references/supported-devices/). Because the XProtect VMS system uses a different device pack, Milestone recommends that your cameras have the latest supported camera firmware version installed.

When you verify your cameras, also verify that the required functionality is supported. The use of a different device pack can cause minor differences in the way XProtect VMS supports functionality of some cameras compared to XProtect Professional VMS.

A device pack is automatically included when you install the XProtect system, but Milestone adds support for new devices and firmware versions on an ongoing basis, and releases device packs every two months on average. To get the latest device pack, manually check for newer versions to download and install.

To update your device pack after installation, go to the download section of the Milestone website (https://www.milestonesys.com/downloads/) and download the relevant installation file.

Can I reuse existing computers?

The minimum system requirements for running XProtect Professional VMS and XProtect VMS systems differ only slightly. In many cases, you are able to reuse your existing computers.

Information about the minimum system requirements for system components is available on our website (https://www.milestonesys.com/systemrequirements/).

For best performance on computers running Smart Client or recording server installations, Milestone recommends to use computers with Intel^® and NVIDIA^® GPU hardware acceleration capabilities.

The administration interface of XProtect VMS, the Management Client, can be installed on any computer. When migrating to XProtect VMS, you may want to use the occasion to rethink and optimize the way you use your computers.

XProtect VMS is a fully distributed system. As many recording servers as required can run under one management server. You can also install the whole system on a single computer, depending on your needs.

Archiving

Archiving is the automatic transfer of recordings from the default recording storage of a camera to another location. In this way, the number of recordings you are able to store are not limited by the size of the default recording storage.

Different from XProtect Professional VMS, the archiving process in XProtect VMS supports multi-stage storage architecture where the recordings can be archived again and again to new storage areas. You create storages per recording server, and for each camera or camera group, you specify which storage to use.

Archiving is not a requirement when using XProtect VMS. In case the hard disks you have allocated for the live database (default recording storage) are fast enough and able to contain the expected amount of data, the system can run without archiving.

If you are using the archiving feature in your current XProtect Professional VMS system and have allocated disks for this purpose, it is possible to re-use these disks with XProtect VMS, because the disk specifications basically are identical for the two systems. If recording and archiving previously was done to the same disk, you do not need to archive.

For more information about how to configure storage and archiving in XProtect Management Client, see the XProtect VMS documentation website (https://doc.milestonesys.com/).

Integrations with other applications

If you have created integrations between your current XProtect Professional VMS system and third-party products, for example, access control systems or fire alarm systems, with MIP SDK, the integrations should be carefully tested before migrating to verify that they will also work with XProtect VMS.

Milestone recommends that you contact your solution provider to review your customized integrations to be used with XProtect VMS.

Virus scanning

It is likely that virus scanning will use a considerable amount of system resources on scanning all the data being recorded or archived. Also, the virus scanning software may temporarily lock each file it scans. For performance reasons, Milestone recommends that you disable any virus scanning of recording databases and archiving locations, if archiving is enabled.

If you already have disabled virus scanning in your Professional VMS system, you should do the same on the new storage resources that you configure in connection with the migration.

How to keep access to a XProtect Professional VMS system

You can no longer add your XProtect Professional VMS servers to your new XProtect VMS system as slave servers. The last XProtect VMS release supporting this is 2019 R1.

To keep access to a running a XProtect Professional VMS system from the new XProtect VMS system use the Milestone Interconnect™ feature, by integrating the XProtect Professional VMS system with a XProtect Corporate central site.

Only XProtect Corporate systems can be central sites.

The central site interprets the XProtect Professional VMS system, the remote site, as an advanced camera or multi-channel encoder with edge storage capabilities.

Clients that connect to the central site can view live streams of remote site cameras and play back recordings from remote sites.

On the central site, you can view the status of the interconnected cameras, but to monitor the remote site, you can use remote site events to trigger alarms or other notifications on the central site.

For more information about Milestone Interconnect, go to the Milestone Interconnect website (https://www.milestonesys.com/products/expand-your-solution/milestone-extensions/interconnect/).