ISE 2.1 to ISE 2.6

[benjmoor]

I'm heading to a customer the week of July 22nd to help with a new ISE install.  That being said, they have an old ISE install (2.1) that didn't go well and was meant to be a migration from ACS.  The clustering never took ahold correctly in their 2.1 install (I wasn't on the account at the time) and there are several other small nagging issues that have lead them to purchase new appliances and move to 2.6.  With that in mind - this is for device management authentication only (for now) and the configuration for that purpose is good.  How would the community recommend we get the necessary configuration (devices/groups/etc) from the 2.1 install into the NEW 2.6 install?

[Damien Miller · Accepted solution]

If it didn't go well, I would first consider if I want any of that questionable configuration on a new 2.6 deployment.

You can upgrade from 2.1 directly to 2.6, which means you can also restore a 2.1 backup to a 2.6 node. I would take a backup of the 2.1 deployment and restore it to the 2.6 PAN. It will run through the data upgrade during the restore process. You can then join any other 2.6 nodes to the PAN for testing.