What about renaming the machine name?

Hi Peter!

Thanks for raising an interesting question, 

Renaming a server or client has been a nuisance for a long time and it seems to become even more of an issue in recent versions.

Such a big problem that I personally advise customers to set up a new machine if this is needed.

You have mentioned several scenarios where there are known problems, but now with the introduction of System Management server and PCS it is causing issues even on client machines. (Machine name is used in Certificates and registrations on the System Management Server, Identity Manager components, System Monitor configuration and more).

Some of our customers has in the past, installed a Client Machine, cloned this and used it as a template for future client computers.,(Installing only installing InTouch, Trend etc) 

In version 2017 we left the Configurator incomplete and had this finalized after cloning, thus making all node specific configuration with the 'correct' nodename.

With 2023 this is not possible, PCS will bind it self to the nodename during install and we have had several issues and support cases with problems that comes from this if node is renamed. The only workaround is to uninstall PCS, clean up the registry, and install this again.
The above issue would apply to any machine, no matter the role it plays in the System Platform solution.

So after encountering this issue we started to look in to scripted Silent Installation to speed up installation of a new machine and by this making the process of introducing a new machine name in to our system faster and more simple.

I would welcome a discussion on this and shared experiences.

Hi Peter!

Thanks for raising an interesting question, 

Renaming a server or client has been a nuisance for a long time and it seems to become even more of an issue in recent versions.

Such a big problem that I personally advise customers to set up a new machine if this is needed.

You have mentioned several scenarios where there are known problems, but now with the introduction of System Management server and PCS it is causing issues even on client machines. (Machine name is used in Certificates and registrations on the System Management Server, Identity Manager components, System Monitor configuration and more).

Some of our customers has in the past, installed a Client Machine, cloned this and used it as a template for future client computers.,(Installing only installing InTouch, Trend etc) 

In version 2017 we left the Configurator incomplete and had this finalized after cloning, thus making all node specific configuration with the 'correct' nodename.

With 2023 this is not possible, PCS will bind it self to the nodename during install and we have had several issues and support cases with problems that comes from this if node is renamed. The only workaround is to uninstall PCS, clean up the registry, and install this again.
The above issue would apply to any machine, no matter the role it plays in the System Platform solution.

So after encountering this issue we started to look in to scripted Silent Installation to speed up installation of a new machine and by this making the process of introducing a new machine name in to our system faster and more simple.

I would welcome a discussion on this and shared experiences.

Hi Richard,

As usual a good answer but I'd like to have an official statement or best practices guide from AVEVA how to overcome this issue. Renaming is not recommended, but it's not documented anywhere afaik.

Thanks
Peter