MID Servers and Instance Copy / Backup RestoreServiceNow support may occasionally use a tool called "Instance Copy" to provision a new temporary instance, based on a backup of another instance, or restore a Backup. If you intend to use features in this new temporary instance/restored instance that need to use the MID Server platform for doing integrations with 3rd party systems, this is the information you will need to know. Table of Contents Backup RestoreAre MID Server installs copied with Instance Copy?Are MID Server files copied with Instance Copy?What happens to features that are set up to use a MID Server?Will MID Servers work in Debug Mode? Backup Restore If you are restoring a backup of the instance over itself, then you would expect the MID Server files and instance Users being used by the MID Server installs to still be there after the restore. The records you see will be for MID Server installs of the instance, and those should show as "Up" once the MID Server installs are able to start communicating with the instance after the restore, and everything will work as before. The MID Servers may need restarting, users/passwords updating if those had changed since the backup, or need re-key or invalidate/validate related links using if anything to do with Key Management Framework had changed in the meantime, but a reinstall of the MID Servers should not be necessary. However, if you used a backup from a different source instance, and restored that over your instance (target instance), then you are in effect doing what our Instance Copy automation does, which is explained in the points below. Are MID Server installs copied with Instance Copy? No. Any existing MID Servers will remain communicating with the original instance. Solution: You will need to install new MID Server applications on your Windows/Linux servers for use with this new instance. Are MID Server files copied with Instance Copy? Yes. The MID Server records from the source of the backup will be present in this new instance. Ideally they would not be added by Instance Copy. A Clone, which is similar in a lot of ways, would exclude all these MID Server records, and not copy them. A lot of the information in the MID Servers and Clones KB article is also relevant to this. This is confusing, because it will look like the instance does have a lost of MID Servers if you look in the ecc_agent table. The instance will actually update them, to mark them all as Down, because none of the mid server installs that these records represent will be communicating with this instance. Solution: These records are not for this new instance, and will need deleting manually, which will cascade delete a lot of other related records you also do not want. If the MID Server records have no Configuration Parameters listed, or do have them listed and the 'url' parameter is the source instance, then these MID Server records probably need deleting. You can confirm this by finding the installs using the Host name and Home folder fields on the record. The config.xml file in that install home folder will have the URL parameter, that shows which instance the install is for. What happens to features that are set up to use a MID Server? They won't work, because they are referring to a MID Server name, or referencing a MID Server record sys_id, that is not of this new instance. Until some new MID Servers are installed, features that use automatic MID Selection won't have any compatible MID Servers to use either. Solution: Any feature that directly references a MID Server, will need reconfiguring to use one of the new MID Servers you have installed for this new instance. See the "Records and settings that reference MID Servers" section of the MID Servers and Clones KB article. Will MID Servers work in Debug Mode? No. The ECC Queue processing relies heavily on asynchronous business rules and other scheduled jobs. That includes the scheduled job that generates Heartbeat probes, which keeps MID Servers in "Up" state. By default, an instance copy will bring the instance up in debug mode, with the system scheduler disabled. Solution: The system scheduler will need enabling before MID Server related apps and features will work.