Re: Help with upgrade path
Can you think about staged upgrade, this may take care of missing forms/fields/indexes in the later versions before you move to 8.1.2? just a thought. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: 3 January 2015 05:53 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path I did have to apply the fix on the Schema_Archive table not because we had data but because it was the wrong field type (Varchar2 instead of Number) and was throwing errors. Interestingly, yours is the second post I've found about deleting the Flashboard forms (if you don't use them) in order to upgrade to 7.64. I'm trying to upgrade to 8.1.2 from 7.1, and it's throwing an error about not being able to update the FB:User Privilege form. It says the form doesn't exist (and sure enough, it isn't there when looking with Developer Studio). I am starting to think that with the ARS Server upgrade option, it expects certain forms to be there from earlier upgrades and hence doesn't import them. I will try deleting the flash board forms and running the upgrade again to see if it loads them all. Another point is that I get unique index errors in the upgrade logs about the ADF_ServerApps and ADF_GroupUser forms...Neither of those forms show up when looking with Developer Studio either. I find it amusing that it gives index violation errors since I don't have these forms on my 7.1 install meaning clearly I can't have duplicate records! It's really looking like I may have to stair step my upgrade from 7.1 to 7.5 to 7.64 and then to 8.1.2. Although support at BMC is convinced that I should be able to go from 7.1 to 8.1.2 because I have only custom forms and no mods to the stock ARS forms. I have a crazy idea that I may try. Before I went down the thorny upgrade path, I did a new install of the 8.1.2 server to get all the binaries onto the new machine. Before truncating everything and importing my 7.1 ARADMIN schema, I did a database export of the pristine ARADMIN schema. I'm really tempted to export off my upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema then reload that pristine ARADMIN schema. I would then export the definitions for the forms the upgrade installer thinks I am missing and then bring the upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema back in, import the definitions for those forms, and then run the upgrade installer for ARS 8.1.2 again. Yup, crazy. But my other alternatives if I can't straight upgrade is to SLOWLY go thru each upgrade or do a new install and import my custom forms and data with migrator. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Your last line is the answer!! If you can do that, you will save yourself quite a bit of pain!! ...do a new install and import my custom forms and data with migrator. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: 3 January 2015 05:53 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path I did have to apply the fix on the Schema_Archive table not because we had data but because it was the wrong field type (Varchar2 instead of Number) and was throwing errors. Interestingly, yours is the second post I've found about deleting the Flashboard forms (if you don't use them) in order to upgrade to 7.64. I'm trying to upgrade to 8.1.2 from 7.1, and it's throwing an error about not being able to update the FB:User Privilege form. It says the form doesn't exist (and sure enough, it isn't there when looking with Developer Studio). I am starting to think that with the ARS Server upgrade option, it expects certain forms to be there from earlier upgrades and hence doesn't import them. I will try deleting the flash board forms and running the upgrade again to see if it loads them all. Another point is that I get unique index errors in the upgrade logs about the ADF_ServerApps and ADF_GroupUser forms...Neither of those forms show up when looking with Developer Studio either. I find it amusing that it gives index violation errors since I don't have these forms on my 7.1 install meaning clearly I can't have duplicate records! It's really looking like I may have to stair step my upgrade from 7.1 to 7.5 to 7.64 and then to 8.1.2. Although support at BMC is convinced that I should be able to go from 7.1 to 8.1.2 because I have only custom forms and no mods to the stock ARS forms. I have a crazy idea that I may try. Before I went down the thorny upgrade path, I did a new install of the 8.1.2 server to get all the binaries onto the new machine. Before truncating everything and importing my 7.1 ARADMIN schema, I did a database export of the pristine ARADMIN schema. I'm really tempted to export off my upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema then reload that pristine ARADMIN schema. I would then export the definitions for the forms the upgrade installer thinks I am missing and then bring the upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema back in, import the definitions for those forms, and then run the upgrade installer for ARS 8.1.2 again. Yup, crazy. But my other alternatives if I can't straight upgrade is to SLOWLY go thru each upgrade or do a new install and import my custom forms and data with migrator. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
I absolutely agree with Claire! With a non-ITSM system building a new environment and migrating your definitions/data (via the API) is likely *way* easier than going through an upgrade(s). Not only will this very likely save you time, frustration and hair on your head but you will end up with a cleaned up environment because you will find things that are no longer relevant and leave those out of the new system. For example in 2009 we moved our custom system from AR 7.0.01 to AR 7.5 by building a new 7.5 system and importing defs/data. Since then we have upgraded that same database to 7.6.04 and now 8.1.02.001. Along the way we have changed to new app/db servers and have upgraded SQL as well. My team recently started the discussion of building a new AR DB from a fresh install the next time we upgrade a major AR version, just like we did in 2009. In our case we are currently using Help Desk 6 and everything else custom (ok so it isn't a completely custom system however HD had been so customized and so far out of support we consider it ours now. We even converted the HD objects to Custom.). This year we are starting the process of building a custom app to replace HD6. With HD6 we have a *ton* of CMDB objects that have never been used. Also at one point we had SLA installed. Instead of surgically removing the CMDB/SLA objects from our DB we'll likely build a new DB from a fresh install and just leave all the stuff we no longer want behind. We'll use the API for *everything* that we move to make sure all definitions and data are check against the current version as they are brought in. HTH, Jason On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 8:39 AM, Sanford, Claire claire.sanf...@memorialhermann.org wrote: Your last line is the answer!! If you can do that, you will save yourself quite a bit of pain!! ...do a new install and import my custom forms and data with migrator. -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: 3 January 2015 05:53 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path I did have to apply the fix on the Schema_Archive table not because we had data but because it was the wrong field type (Varchar2 instead of Number) and was throwing errors. Interestingly, yours is the second post I've found about deleting the Flashboard forms (if you don't use them) in order to upgrade to 7.64. I'm trying to upgrade to 8.1.2 from 7.1, and it's throwing an error about not being able to update the FB:User Privilege form. It says the form doesn't exist (and sure enough, it isn't there when looking with Developer Studio). I am starting to think that with the ARS Server upgrade option, it expects certain forms to be there from earlier upgrades and hence doesn't import them. I will try deleting the flash board forms and running the upgrade again to see if it loads them all. Another point is that I get unique index errors in the upgrade logs about the ADF_ServerApps and ADF_GroupUser forms...Neither of those forms show up when looking with Developer Studio either. I find it amusing that it gives index violation errors since I don't have these forms on my 7.1 install meaning clearly I can't have duplicate records! It's really looking like I may have to stair step my upgrade from 7.1 to 7.5 to 7.64 and then to 8.1.2. Although support at BMC is convinced that I should be able to go from 7.1 to 8.1.2 because I have only custom forms and no mods to the stock ARS forms. I have a crazy idea that I may try. Before I went down the thorny upgrade path, I did a new install of the 8.1.2 server to get all the binaries onto the new machine. Before truncating everything and importing my 7.1 ARADMIN schema, I did a database export of the pristine ARADMIN schema. I'm really tempted to export off my upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema then reload that pristine ARADMIN schema. I would then export the definitions for the forms the upgrade installer thinks I am missing and then bring the upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema back in, import the definitions for those forms, and then run the upgrade installer for ARS 8.1.2 again. Yup, crazy. But my other alternatives if I can't straight upgrade is to SLOWLY go thru each upgrade or do a new install and import my custom forms and data with migrator. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
I did have to apply the fix on the Schema_Archive table not because we had data but because it was the wrong field type (Varchar2 instead of Number) and was throwing errors. Interestingly, yours is the second post I've found about deleting the Flashboard forms (if you don't use them) in order to upgrade to 7.64. I'm trying to upgrade to 8.1.2 from 7.1, and it's throwing an error about not being able to update the FB:User Privilege form. It says the form doesn't exist (and sure enough, it isn't there when looking with Developer Studio). I am starting to think that with the ARS Server upgrade option, it expects certain forms to be there from earlier upgrades and hence doesn't import them. I will try deleting the flash board forms and running the upgrade again to see if it loads them all. Another point is that I get unique index errors in the upgrade logs about the ADF_ServerApps and ADF_GroupUser forms...Neither of those forms show up when looking with Developer Studio either. I find it amusing that it gives index violation errors since I don't have these forms on my 7.1 install meaning clearly I can't have duplicate records! It's really looking like I may have to stair step my upgrade from 7.1 to 7.5 to 7.64 and then to 8.1.2. Although support at BMC is convinced that I should be able to go from 7.1 to 8.1.2 because I have only custom forms and no mods to the stock ARS forms. I have a crazy idea that I may try. Before I went down the thorny upgrade path, I did a new install of the 8.1.2 server to get all the binaries onto the new machine. Before truncating everything and importing my 7.1 ARADMIN schema, I did a database export of the pristine ARADMIN schema. I'm really tempted to export off my upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema then reload that pristine ARADMIN schema. I would then export the definitions for the forms the upgrade installer thinks I am missing and then bring the upgraded 7.1 ARADMIN schema back in, import the definitions for those forms, and then run the upgrade installer for ARS 8.1.2 again. Yup, crazy. But my other alternatives if I can't straight upgrade is to SLOWLY go thru each upgrade or do a new install and import my custom forms and data with migrator. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Hi Scott, We have a large Custom-Only installation – no ITSM or any other OOTB apps, thus – ARS only. I suggest not to skip the x or x.y major versions of the base AR System. The x.y.z minor versions generally do not have a notable design change on the DB – with the exception of 7.6.04, which introduced overlays (Don’t understand why BMC did not release this as a Major version???). This comes out of previous experience with having been called in to “fix” a number of failed upgrades in the past, amplified by a recent round of failed upgrade attempts. You could try to skip one or two of these versions – that’s up to you – YMMD – but no guarantees. You might be lucky when going directly from 7.0.1 to 8.1…. but I would not advise doing it to your Prod environment before doing some extensive testing on a duplicate test bed environment. We had the before-last round of upgrade attempts directly from 7.1.0 to 7.6.04 fail repeatedly on colleagues, a local support vendor and myself. We were desperate to get to a currently supported version of ARS, so I decided not to give up and find out why it fails….. Eventually got it sorted out safely using the steps I outlined before. We decided not to go to 8.0 or 8.1 as 7.6.04 is the last version that is shipped with the User Tool. Our user base are still making extensive use of the User tool and are reluctant to use Mid-Tier because of it’s lack of performance and because of the limitations it imposes on you as opposed to the User Tool. I would suggest using the ARS upgrade path with each of the versions I mentioned as I outlined it in my previous mail, (however you might want to upgrade to ARS 7.1.0 first), just to be on the safe side, because it is known to work that way. A single ARS Base upgrade does not take very long. We had a Saturday morning and afternoon change window to do the ARS Base upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 SP5 and that was enough time to get it done. As far as the OOTB modules are concerned, I have not yet tried to use the 7.x ITSM modules on the 8.x AR Server, but logic dictates that it should still work if the 7.x ITSM libraries are still intact after the ARS upgrade, as the ARS API is backwards compatible. HTH. Best Regards, Theo From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Scott Hallenger Sent: 18 December 2014 18:41 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path ** Theo.. was this an ARS upgrade only, or were you upgrading the whole ITSM suite. I'm looking into an upgrading of only my ARS 7.0.01 base, which has ITSM running on top of it, to to 8.1 or 7.6. We would leave the ITSM portion as is for now. Are you saying to do this we need to install every version of ARS until we get to 8.1 On Monday, December 15, 2014 2:11 PM, Theo Fondse (GMail) theo.fon...@gmail.com mailto:theo.fon...@gmail.com wrote: ** Hi Carina, We upgraded our Custom-Only 7.1/10g/Slolaris server recently to 7.6.4/11g/RedHat. I always suggest NOT to skip a major version when doing an upgrade, due to the fact that BMC only supports the last 3 versions, and therefore, might not test their software during development for upgrades from unsupported versions at the time. (I seriously doubt that BMC would have tested a straight upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 or much less 8.0 or 8.1, due to their version support policies). Before I started my current stint at the company where I am working now, they attempted an upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.4 and failed several times. Even with the assistance of a local support partner, the upgrade failed and they eventually gave up. The solution to the problem later turned out to be that you should not skip any major versions and go through the installer logs to find out what went wrong if the installer fails. We found a caveat with some of the AR System forms and tables which had to be addressed manually before the upgrade in order to get the upgrade to work. I suggest the following steps which worked for us to do a successful upgrade (please test it first on a development/test environment before doing this on prod): 1. Back up the current DB (full DB export dump). 2. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Central File form. 3. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Preference form. 4. Temporary Disable Automatic Processes (performance tuning to make upgrade complete faster): Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events 5. Temporary Decrease Threads count (max 2 each) to enable faster re-caching during upgrade. 6. Shut Down AR System. 7. Verify that the Oracle 11g 64 bit client has been installed on the server and update the tnsnames file for this client. 8. Verify that at least java 1.6 32 and 64 bit has been installed. 9. Comment out Db
Re: Help with upgrade path
Thanks for the info Theo. One more question. Did you migrate the 3rd party pieces to 64bit as well? We are using Exchange/Outlook for our mail server so we are using the MAPI protocol for the email engine. This means we have to use the 32bit JRE. I'm wondering whether I need to use the 32bit 2.4.x Apache HTTPD or whether I can use the 64bit. On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 21:10:37 +0200, Theo Fondse (GMail) theo.fon...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Carina, We upgraded our Custom-Only 7.1/10g/Slolaris server recently to 7.6.4/11g/RedHat. I always suggest NOT to skip a major version when doing an upgrade, due to the fact that BMC only supports the last 3 versions, and therefore, might not test their software during development for upgrades from unsupported versions at the time. (I seriously doubt that BMC would have tested a straight upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 or much less 8.0 or 8.1, due to their version support policies). Before I started my current stint at the company where I am working now, they attempted an upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.4 and failed several times. Even with the assistance of a local support partner, the upgrade failed and they eventually gave up. The solution to the problem later turned out to be that you should not skip any major versions and go through the installer logs to find out what went wrong if the installer fails. We found a caveat with some of the AR System forms and tables which had to be addressed manually before the upgrade in order to get the upgrade to work. I suggest the following steps which worked for us to do a successful upgrade (please test it first on a development/test environment before doing this on prod): 1. Back up the current DB (full DB export dump). 2. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Central File form. 3. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Preference form. 4. Temporary Disable Automatic Processes (performance tuning to make upgrade complete faster): Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events 5. Temporary Decrease Threads count (max 2 each) to enable faster re-caching during upgrade. 6. Shut Down AR System. 7. Verify that the Oracle 11g 64 bit client has been installed on the server and update the tnsnames file for this client. 8. Verify that at least java 1.6 32 and 64 bit has been installed. 9. Comment out Db-Character-Set: UTF-8 parameter in ar.conf file if using UTF-8. 10.Run the following script on Oracle (fix for SW00327170): CREATE TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP AS SELECT SCHEMAID, ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE; COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = NULL; COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NUMBER (15)); COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = (SELECT ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP WHERE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP.SCHEMAID = SCHEMA_ARCHIVE.SCHEMAID); COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NOT NULL); 11.Upgrade to ARS 7.5.0 12.Upgrade to ARS 7.6.04 SP5 13.Upgrade to ARS 8.0 14.Upgrade to ARS 8.1 15.Restore original config for Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events Threads count 16.Import backed up records for the AR System User Central File form. 17.Import backed up records for the AR System User Preference form. HTH, Best Regards, Theo -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: 12 December 2014 22:44 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path My suggestion Take a backup of the Oracle 10g data and copy/restore it to the Oracle 12c (Your DBA could also do this with oracle DataPump). Install 8.1 on the new server against the copy/restored data. When installing it should ask you if you want to upgrade or start new in the database. Choose upgrade. (You do NOT need to have an existing set of ARS binaries on the new server to choose upgrade as this only refers to the database data) Fred -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 11:38 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Help with upgrade path Greetings!!! I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our ARS system. I've contacted BMC for advice, however our support contract level is Basic... which is also the adjective I would use to describe my current level of customer satisfaction. Has anyone gone from ARS 7.1 to 8.1? How did you do it? If you don't want to wade thru my specifics
Re: Help with upgrade path
And I just read your other replyYou likely don't run HTTPD because you don't run Mid-Tier... So I'll open the question to others, will Apache HTTPD 2.4.x 64bit work well with the 32bit JRE? And is anyone running the later versions of JRE? The support matrix lists JRE6u17 but Oracle has that in the Nope column. On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:45:22 -0500, Carina Burns carina.bu...@risd.org wrote: Thanks for the info Theo. One more question. Did you migrate the 3rd party pieces to 64bit as well? We are using Exchange/Outlook for our mail server so we are using the MAPI protocol for the email engine. This means we have to use the 32bit JRE. I'm wondering whether I need to use the 32bit 2.4.x Apache HTTPD or whether I can use the 64bit. On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 21:10:37 +0200, Theo Fondse (GMail) theo.fon...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Carina, We upgraded our Custom-Only 7.1/10g/Slolaris server recently to 7.6.4/11g/RedHat. I always suggest NOT to skip a major version when doing an upgrade, due to the fact that BMC only supports the last 3 versions, and therefore, might not test their software during development for upgrades from unsupported versions at the time. (I seriously doubt that BMC would have tested a straight upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 or much less 8.0 or 8.1, due to their version support policies). Before I started my current stint at the company where I am working now, they attempted an upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.4 and failed several times. Even with the assistance of a local support partner, the upgrade failed and they eventually gave up. The solution to the problem later turned out to be that you should not skip any major versions and go through the installer logs to find out what went wrong if the installer fails. We found a caveat with some of the AR System forms and tables which had to be addressed manually before the upgrade in order to get the upgrade to work. I suggest the following steps which worked for us to do a successful upgrade (please test it first on a development/test environment before doing this on prod): 1.Back up the current DB (full DB export dump). 2.Export and delete all records from the AR System User Central File form. 3.Export and delete all records from the AR System User Preference form. 4.Temporary Disable Automatic Processes (performance tuning to make upgrade complete faster): Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events 5.Temporary Decrease Threads count (max 2 each) to enable faster re-caching during upgrade. 6.Shut Down AR System. 7.Verify that the Oracle 11g 64 bit client has been installed on the server and update the tnsnames file for this client. 8.Verify that at least java 1.6 32 and 64 bit has been installed. 9.Comment out Db-Character-Set: UTF-8 parameter in ar.conf file if using UTF-8. 10. Run the following script on Oracle (fix for SW00327170): CREATE TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP AS SELECT SCHEMAID, ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE; COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = NULL; COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NUMBER (15)); COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = (SELECT ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP WHERE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP.SCHEMAID = SCHEMA_ARCHIVE.SCHEMAID); COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NOT NULL); 11. Upgrade to ARS 7.5.0 12. Upgrade to ARS 7.6.04 SP5 13. Upgrade to ARS 8.0 14. Upgrade to ARS 8.1 15. Restore original config for Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events Threads count 16. Import backed up records for the AR System User Central File form. 17. Import backed up records for the AR System User Preference form. HTH, Best Regards, Theo -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: 12 December 2014 22:44 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path My suggestion Take a backup of the Oracle 10g data and copy/restore it to the Oracle 12c (Your DBA could also do this with oracle DataPump). Install 8.1 on the new server against the copy/restored data. When installing it should ask you if you want to upgrade or start new in the database. Choose upgrade. (You do NOT need to have an existing set of ARS binaries on the new server to choose upgrade as this only refers to the database data) Fred -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 11:38 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Help with upgrade path
Re: Help with upgrade path
Hi Carina, We moved everything to 64-bit, but also installed a 32-bit copy of Java especially for the Email Engine. Best Regards, Theo On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 5:45 PM, Carina Burns carina.bu...@risd.org wrote: Thanks for the info Theo. One more question. Did you migrate the 3rd party pieces to 64bit as well? We are using Exchange/Outlook for our mail server so we are using the MAPI protocol for the email engine. This means we have to use the 32bit JRE. I'm wondering whether I need to use the 32bit 2.4.x Apache HTTPD or whether I can use the 64bit. On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 21:10:37 +0200, Theo Fondse (GMail) theo.fon...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Carina, We upgraded our Custom-Only 7.1/10g/Slolaris server recently to 7.6.4/11g/RedHat. I always suggest NOT to skip a major version when doing an upgrade, due to the fact that BMC only supports the last 3 versions, and therefore, might not test their software during development for upgrades from unsupported versions at the time. (I seriously doubt that BMC would have tested a straight upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 or much less 8.0 or 8.1, due to their version support policies). Before I started my current stint at the company where I am working now, they attempted an upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.4 and failed several times. Even with the assistance of a local support partner, the upgrade failed and they eventually gave up. The solution to the problem later turned out to be that you should not skip any major versions and go through the installer logs to find out what went wrong if the installer fails. We found a caveat with some of the AR System forms and tables which had to be addressed manually before the upgrade in order to get the upgrade to work. I suggest the following steps which worked for us to do a successful upgrade (please test it first on a development/test environment before doing this on prod): 1. Back up the current DB (full DB export dump). 2. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Central File form. 3. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Preference form. 4. Temporary Disable Automatic Processes (performance tuning to make upgrade complete faster): Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events 5. Temporary Decrease Threads count (max 2 each) to enable faster re-caching during upgrade. 6. Shut Down AR System. 7. Verify that the Oracle 11g 64 bit client has been installed on the server and update the tnsnames file for this client. 8. Verify that at least java 1.6 32 and 64 bit has been installed. 9. Comment out Db-Character-Set: UTF-8 parameter in ar.conf file if using UTF-8. 10.Run the following script on Oracle (fix for SW00327170): CREATE TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP AS SELECT SCHEMAID, ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE; COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = NULL; COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NUMBER (15)); COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = (SELECT ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP WHERE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP.SCHEMAID = SCHEMA_ARCHIVE.SCHEMAID); COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NOT NULL); 11.Upgrade to ARS 7.5.0 12.Upgrade to ARS 7.6.04 SP5 13.Upgrade to ARS 8.0 14.Upgrade to ARS 8.1 15.Restore original config for Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events Threads count 16.Import backed up records for the AR System User Central File form. 17.Import backed up records for the AR System User Preference form. HTH, Best Regards, Theo -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: 12 December 2014 22:44 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path My suggestion Take a backup of the Oracle 10g data and copy/restore it to the Oracle 12c (Your DBA could also do this with oracle DataPump). Install 8.1 on the new server against the copy/restored data. When installing it should ask you if you want to upgrade or start new in the database. Choose upgrade. (You do NOT need to have an existing set of ARS binaries on the new server to choose upgrade as this only refers to the database data) Fred -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 11:38 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Help with upgrade path Greetings!!! I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our
Re: Help with upgrade path
Hi Carina, We are running Mid-Tier, but with Tomcat on it's own and without HTTPD. You do not need httpd to run mid-tier unless you want to host other normal web sites/pages. Mid-Tier is perfectly happy on Tomcat only. (You can even configure Tomcat to bind on Port 80 in stead of 8080 if you want to.) Best Regards, Theo On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 5:52 PM, Carina Burns carina.bu...@risd.org wrote: And I just read your other replyYou likely don't run HTTPD because you don't run Mid-Tier... So I'll open the question to others, will Apache HTTPD 2.4.x 64bit work well with the 32bit JRE? And is anyone running the later versions of JRE? The support matrix lists JRE6u17 but Oracle has that in the Nope column. On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:45:22 -0500, Carina Burns carina.bu...@risd.org wrote: Thanks for the info Theo. One more question. Did you migrate the 3rd party pieces to 64bit as well? We are using Exchange/Outlook for our mail server so we are using the MAPI protocol for the email engine. This means we have to use the 32bit JRE. I'm wondering whether I need to use the 32bit 2.4.x Apache HTTPD or whether I can use the 64bit. On Mon, 15 Dec 2014 21:10:37 +0200, Theo Fondse (GMail) theo.fon...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Carina, We upgraded our Custom-Only 7.1/10g/Slolaris server recently to 7.6.4/11g/RedHat. I always suggest NOT to skip a major version when doing an upgrade, due to the fact that BMC only supports the last 3 versions, and therefore, might not test their software during development for upgrades from unsupported versions at the time. (I seriously doubt that BMC would have tested a straight upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 or much less 8.0 or 8.1, due to their version support policies). Before I started my current stint at the company where I am working now, they attempted an upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.4 and failed several times. Even with the assistance of a local support partner, the upgrade failed and they eventually gave up. The solution to the problem later turned out to be that you should not skip any major versions and go through the installer logs to find out what went wrong if the installer fails. We found a caveat with some of the AR System forms and tables which had to be addressed manually before the upgrade in order to get the upgrade to work. I suggest the following steps which worked for us to do a successful upgrade (please test it first on a development/test environment before doing this on prod): 1.Back up the current DB (full DB export dump). 2.Export and delete all records from the AR System User Central File form. 3.Export and delete all records from the AR System User Preference form. 4.Temporary Disable Automatic Processes (performance tuning to make upgrade complete faster): Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events 5.Temporary Decrease Threads count (max 2 each) to enable faster re-caching during upgrade. 6.Shut Down AR System. 7.Verify that the Oracle 11g 64 bit client has been installed on the server and update the tnsnames file for this client. 8.Verify that at least java 1.6 32 and 64 bit has been installed. 9.Comment out Db-Character-Set: UTF-8 parameter in ar.conf file if using UTF-8. 10. Run the following script on Oracle (fix for SW00327170): CREATE TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP AS SELECT SCHEMAID, ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE; COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = NULL; COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NUMBER (15)); COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = (SELECT ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP WHERE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP.SCHEMAID = SCHEMA_ARCHIVE.SCHEMAID); COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NOT NULL); 11. Upgrade to ARS 7.5.0 12. Upgrade to ARS 7.6.04 SP5 13. Upgrade to ARS 8.0 14. Upgrade to ARS 8.1 15. Restore original config for Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events Threads count 16. Import backed up records for the AR System User Central File form. 17. Import backed up records for the AR System User Preference form. HTH, Best Regards, Theo -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: 12 December 2014 22:44 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path My suggestion Take a backup of the Oracle 10g data and copy/restore it to the Oracle 12c (Your DBA could also do this with oracle DataPump). Install 8.1 on the new server against the copy/restored data. When installing it should ask you if you
Re: Help with upgrade path
I just searched oracle support and can't find anything on SW00327170. The only thing listed is a bug that isn't a bug but a config issue with OraDB 7.2. Do you have any other reference number or doc id for this archive fix? ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
I just looked and that column in our linux Ora10g Schema_archive table is a varchar2(254) with no “not null” constraint. I don’t think I’m going to change it to a number(15) not null column before I try the upgrade since this may be a Solaris only issue. If the upgrade bombs then I’ll look over the install log and see if it’s something I should address. Thanks for the heads up though. From: Theo Fondse [mailto:theo.fon...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 10:25 AM To: Burns, Carina Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path Nope, SW00327170 is on BMC. I see how you could have thought it was on Oracle... :-) ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
You're welcome! Let me know if the upgrade works for you without running the SW00327170 script. Would be interesting to note. Good luck with the rest of your upgrade hope all goes well! On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 7:10 PM, Carina Burns carina.bu...@risd.org wrote: I just looked and that column in our linux Ora10g Schema_archive table is a varchar2(254) with no “not null” constraint. I don’t think I’m going to change it to a number(15) not null column before I try the upgrade since this may be a Solaris only issue. If the upgrade bombs then I’ll look over the install log and see if it’s something I should address. Thanks for the heads up though. From: Theo Fondse [mailto:theo.fon...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 10:25 AM To: Burns, Carina Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path Nope, SW00327170 is on BMC. I see how you could have thought it was on Oracle... :-) ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Interesting! I put the question in on my support ticket as this doc on software requirements suggests HTTPD is required to install ARS 8.1 https://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/public/ars81/Software+requirements And... it drives me nuts that the minimums are specified on the compatibility matrix but not which most recent version is stable. You said you installed both the 32bit and 64bit JRE's? Which versions did you use? On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 18:09:06 +0200, Theo Fondse theo.fon...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Carina, We are running Mid-Tier, but with Tomcat on it's own and without HTTPD. You do not need httpd to run mid-tier unless you want to host other normal web sites/pages. Mid-Tier is perfectly happy on Tomcat only. (You can even configure Tomcat to bind on Port 80 in stead of 8080 if you want to.) Best Regards, Theo ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Do you have any data in the ARCHIVEFROMFORM column? If not then you should be safe. Since we did not use archiving all we had to do was make sure it was empty We are on Linux as well and there was a few small issues going from 6.3 to 7.6.04 Here is the script we used to correct them truncate table ALERT_USER; commit; -- Since no one can be logged in to the Alert tool while the upgrade is going on it seemed a good time to clear the list -- Backup FIELD_ENUM Create Table FWG_FIELD_ENUM as select * from FIELD_ENUM; commit; Update FIELD_ENUM set ENUMSTYLE = NULL; COMMIT; ALTER TABLE FIELD_ENUM MODIFY (ENUMSTYLE NUMBER(15)); COMMIT; Update Field_ENUM f Set ENUMSTYLE = ( Select ENUMSTYLE from FWG_FIELD_ENUM Where SCHEMAID=f.SCHEMAID and FIELDID=f.FIELDID) Where exists (Select ENUMSTYLE from FWG_FIELD_ENUM Where SCHEMAID=f.SCHEMAID and FIELDID=f.FIELDID); Commit; -- Backup FILTER_NOTIFY Create Table FWG_FILTER_NOTIFY as select * from FILTER_NOTIFY; Commit; Update FILTER_NOTIFY set BEHAVIOR = NULL, PERMISSION=NULL; Commit; ALTER TABLE FILTER_NOTIFY MODIFY (BEHAVIOR NUMBER(15), PERMISSION NUMBER(15) ); COMMIT; Update FILTER_NOTIFY set BEHAVIOR = 0, PERMISSION=0; Commit; -- Backup SCHEMA_ARCHIVE Create Table FWG_SCHEMA_ARCHIVE as select * from SCHEMA_ARCHIVE; Commit; Update SCHEMA_ARCHIVE set ARCHIVEFROMFORM=NULL; Commit; In order to speed up the upgrade I truncated the Flashboards historical server statistics data -- Flashboards 209 = FB_CUMULATIVESERVERSTATISTICS, 210 = FB_NONCUMULATIVESERVERSTATISTI Truncate Table T209 Drop Storage; Truncate Table H209 Drop Storage; Truncate Table B209 Drop Storage; Truncate Table T210 Drop Storage; Truncate Table H210 Drop Storage; Truncate Table B210 Drop Storage; These forms were converted to Vendor Forms (We didn't use Flashboards so I could just drop them and the upgrade created the new Vendor ones) FB:Alarm Monitor FB:DataSourceVariables FB:Flashboards FB:Variable FB:Variable Attributes Fred -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 11:11 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path I just looked and that column in our linux Ora10g Schema_archive table is a varchar2(254) with no “not null” constraint. I don’t think I’m going to change it to a number(15) not null column before I try the upgrade since this may be a Solaris only issue. If the upgrade bombs then I’ll look over the install log and see if it’s something I should address. Thanks for the heads up though. -Original Message- From: Theo Fondse [mailto:theo.fon...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 10:25 AM To: Burns, Carina Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path Nope, SW00327170 is on BMC. I see how you could have thought it was on Oracle... :-) ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Theo.. was this an ARS upgrade only, or were you upgrading the whole ITSM suite. I'm looking into an upgrading of only my ARS 7.0.01 base, which has ITSM running on top of it, to to 8.1 or 7.6. We would leave the ITSM portion as is for now. Are you saying to do this we need to install every version of ARS until we get to 8.1 On Monday, December 15, 2014 2:11 PM, Theo Fondse (GMail) theo.fon...@gmail.com wrote: **RE: Help with upgrade pathHi Carina,We upgraded our Custom-Only 7.1/10g/Slolaris server recently to 7.6.4/11g/RedHat.I always suggest NOT to skip a major version when doing an upgrade, due to the fact that BMC only supports the last 3 versions, and therefore, might not test their software during development for upgrades from unsupported versions at the time. (I seriously doubt that BMC would have tested a straight upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 or much less 8.0 or 8.1, due to their version support policies).Before I started my current stint at the company where I am working now, they attempted an upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.4 and failed several times.Even with the assistance of a local support partner, the upgrade failed and they eventually gave up.The solution to the problem later turned out to be that you should not skip any major versions and go through the installer logs to find out what went wrong if the installer fails.We found a caveat with some of the AR System forms and tables which had to be addressed manually before the upgrade in order to get the upgrade to work.I suggest the following steps which worked for us to do a successful upgrade (please test it first on a development/test environment before doing this on prod):1. Back up the current DB (full DB export dump).2. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Central File form.3. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Preference form.4. Temporary Disable Automatic Processes (performance tuning to make upgrade complete faster): Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events5. Temporary Decrease Threads count (max 2 each) to enable faster re-caching during upgrade.6. Shut Down AR System.7. Verify that the Oracle 11g 64 bit client has been installed on the server and update the tnsnames file for this client.8. Verify that at least java 1.6 32 and 64 bit has been installed.9. Comment out Db-Character-Set: UTF-8 parameter in ar.conf file if using UTF-8.10. Run the following script on Oracle (fix for SW00327170):CREATE TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP AS SELECT SCHEMAID, ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE;COMMIT;UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVESET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = NULL;COMMIT;ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVEMODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NUMBER (15));COMMIT;UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVESET ARCHIVEFROMFORM =(SELECT ARCHIVEFROMFORMFROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUPWHERE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP.SCHEMAID = SCHEMA_ARCHIVE.SCHEMAID);COMMIT;ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVEMODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NOT NULL); 11. Upgrade to ARS 7.5.0 12. Upgrade to ARS 7.6.04 SP513. Upgrade to ARS 8.014. Upgrade to ARS 8.115. Restore original config for Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events Threads count16. Import backed up records for the AR System User Central File form.17. Import backed up records for the AR System User Preference form. HTH,Best Regards,Theo-Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: 12 December 2014 22:44 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade pathMy suggestionTake a backup of the Oracle 10g data and copy/restore it to the Oracle 12c (Your DBA could also do this with oracle DataPump). Install 8.1 on the new server against the copy/restored data. When installing it should ask you if you want to upgrade or start new in the database. Choose upgrade. (You do NOT need to have an existing set of ARS binaries on the new server to choose upgrade as this only refers to the database data)Fred-Original Message-From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina BurnsSent: Friday, December 12, 2014 11:38 AMTo: arslist@ARSLIST.ORGSubject: Help with upgrade pathGreetings!!!I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our ARS system. I've contacted BMC for advice, however our support contract level is Basic... which is also the adjective I would use to describe my current level of customer satisfaction.Has anyone gone from ARS 7.1 to 8.1? How did you do it? If you don't want to wade thru my specifics, kindly preface your reply with TLDR before you explain your upgrade method.The specifics: Our production set up isARS 7.1 patch 11 / Midtier7.0.01 patch 5/ Apache Tomcat 5.027 / Crystal Reports XI running on WinSvr
Re: Help with upgrade path
Hi Carina, We upgraded our Custom-Only 7.1/10g/Slolaris server recently to 7.6.4/11g/RedHat. I always suggest NOT to skip a major version when doing an upgrade, due to the fact that BMC only supports the last 3 versions, and therefore, might not test their software during development for upgrades from unsupported versions at the time. (I seriously doubt that BMC would have tested a straight upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.04 or much less 8.0 or 8.1, due to their version support policies). Before I started my current stint at the company where I am working now, they attempted an upgrade from 7.1 to 7.6.4 and failed several times. Even with the assistance of a local support partner, the upgrade failed and they eventually gave up. The solution to the problem later turned out to be that you should not skip any major versions and go through the installer logs to find out what went wrong if the installer fails. We found a caveat with some of the AR System forms and tables which had to be addressed manually before the upgrade in order to get the upgrade to work. I suggest the following steps which worked for us to do a successful upgrade (please test it first on a development/test environment before doing this on prod): 1. Back up the current DB (full DB export dump). 2. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Central File form. 3. Export and delete all records from the AR System User Preference form. 4. Temporary Disable Automatic Processes (performance tuning to make upgrade complete faster): Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events 5. Temporary Decrease Threads count (max 2 each) to enable faster re-caching during upgrade. 6. Shut Down AR System. 7. Verify that the Oracle 11g 64 bit client has been installed on the server and update the tnsnames file for this client. 8. Verify that at least java 1.6 32 and 64 bit has been installed. 9. Comment out Db-Character-Set: UTF-8 parameter in ar.conf file if using UTF-8. 10. Run the following script on Oracle (fix for SW00327170): CREATE TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP AS SELECT SCHEMAID, ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE; COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = NULL; COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NUMBER (15)); COMMIT; UPDATE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE SET ARCHIVEFROMFORM = (SELECT ARCHIVEFROMFORM FROM SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP WHERE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE_BACKUP.SCHEMAID = SCHEMA_ARCHIVE.SCHEMAID); COMMIT; ALTER TABLE SCHEMA_ARCHIVE MODIFY (ARCHIVEFROMFORM NOT NULL); 11. Upgrade to ARS 7.5.0 12. Upgrade to ARS 7.6.04 SP5 13. Upgrade to ARS 8.0 14. Upgrade to ARS 8.1 15. Restore original config for Escalations Alerts Archive Log Files Server Events Threads count 16. Import backed up records for the AR System User Central File form. 17. Import backed up records for the AR System User Preference form. HTH, Best Regards, Theo -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Grooms, Frederick W Sent: 12 December 2014 22:44 To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path My suggestion Take a backup of the Oracle 10g data and copy/restore it to the Oracle 12c (Your DBA could also do this with oracle DataPump). Install 8.1 on the new server against the copy/restored data. When installing it should ask you if you want to upgrade or start new in the database. Choose upgrade. (You do NOT need to have an existing set of ARS binaries on the new server to choose upgrade as this only refers to the database data) Fred -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 11:38 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Help with upgrade path Greetings!!! I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our ARS system. I've contacted BMC for advice, however our support contract level is Basic... which is also the adjective I would use to describe my current level of customer satisfaction. Has anyone gone from ARS 7.1 to 8.1? How did you do it? If you don't want to wade thru my specifics, kindly preface your reply with TLDR before you explain your upgrade method. The specifics: Our production set up is ARS 7.1 patch 11 / Midtier7.0.01 patch 5/ Apache Tomcat 5.027 / Crystal Reports XI running on WinSvr 2003 SP2 against an Oracle 10g last patch database on RedHat Enterprise 4.0 I had thought to step thru and upgrade to 7.6 and then to 8.1 but was advised after opening a support ticket
Re: Help with upgrade path
I should add that the first suggestion I received on my new support ticket was to upgrade the Oracle 10g database to 12c. Unfortunately, as there are other applications pointing to it that aren't certified with 12c, I can't do this. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Okay, so - you're all custom. That's good. How many regular (data) forms are we talking about here? Dozens? Hundreds? William Rentfrow wrentf...@stratacominc.com Office: 715-204-3061 or 701-232-5697x25 Cell: 715-498-5056 -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 11:38 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Help with upgrade path Greetings!!! I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our ARS system. I've contacted BMC for advice, however our support contract level is Basic... which is also the adjective I would use to describe my current level of customer satisfaction. Has anyone gone from ARS 7.1 to 8.1? How did you do it? If you don't want to wade thru my specifics, kindly preface your reply with TLDR before you explain your upgrade method. The specifics: Our production set up is ARS 7.1 patch 11 / Midtier7.0.01 patch 5/ Apache Tomcat 5.027 / Crystal Reports XI running on WinSvr 2003 SP2 against an Oracle 10g last patch database on RedHat Enterprise 4.0 I had thought to step thru and upgrade to 7.6 and then to 8.1 but was advised after opening a support ticket that since we have custom forms only and are not using ITSM or any other BMC app, we could go straight to 8.1 from 7.1. The compatibility matrix lists the minimums but states that any newer versions are supported for OS and database. Since hardware only gets upgraded when bond money exists about every 5-7 years at our school district, I asked for the latest/greatest. I cleared my choices/plan with support but since it was going to take a while to get the servers, I closed the ticket saying I would open another once I had my gear. My new servers are virtual; a WinSvr2012 R2 and a Oracle Linux 6 box. I put Oracle 12c on as the database. I had thought to install ARS 7.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy the production 10g AR schema over to the 12c user, then run 8.1 as an upgrade. That's essentially how I did it the last time and support confirmed that a number of people run their upgrades that way. But Oh-Oh! 7.1 is 32bit and doesn't want to install on my Win 64bit OS...Maybe both support and I missed that little hitch or perhaps I misunderstood. Anyhow, I opened a new ticket and asked if I could do the same thing but with 8.1 instead. In other words, install ARS 8.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy over the 10g AR schema to the 12c user, then run 8.1 again as an upgrade. Here are the answers I got back on my ticket (paraphrased): A) 7.1 isn't supported, B) I was free to experiment using the new install/delete data/move schema/run upgrade method but it may not work C) I can try to install 8.1 as new and use the Migrator to move over all my custom forms D) Contract professional services and pay BMC to help with my upgrade Option D isn't going to happen. So I am left with options B and C. The analyst on the first support ticket didn't think Migrator would be necessary since we aren't using ITSM. Thoughts on that (While I go read the migrator documentation)? Comments on option B? Thanks in advance! Carina ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4794 / Virus Database: 4189/8665 - Release Date: 12/01/14 Internal Virus Database is out of date. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Carina, I have done a 7.5 32-bit - 8.1 64-bit before, and I did exactly like you said...install a new on the new server, and then upgrade The thing about the upgrade is that it's not necessarily upgrading the DB that was installed, it's upgrading the DB that's pointed to during the upgradeso, from that, what I would try, and expect it to work, is to 1 - Install 8.1 in a 'new' install on the new hardware, new db, etc 2 - Restore the prod db to the same server as the new install was done to 3 - Point your 'new' install to the restored db via config files 4 - Upgrade the Remedy install to 8.1 which is essentially option B if I'm not mistaken... On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 10:54 AM, Carina Burns carina.bu...@risd.org wrote: I should add that the first suggestion I received on my new support ticket was to upgrade the Oracle 10g database to 12c. Unfortunately, as there are other applications pointing to it that aren't certified with 12c, I can't do this. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Find out from Support if the Database version necessarily needs to be at 12c or just the Oracle client that the AR System would use. Since you are all custom and no OTB, your upgrade path should be quite simple. Just make sure that you do not have any customizations done to ANY of the OTB forms (core AR System forms in your case since you do not use ITSM). If you have customizations, to any of the OTB forms, those customizations would need to be converted to an overlay. I do not know specifics about 8.x to do this, but for 7.6.04 the BPCU utility would take care of that for you. Find out if you need to use something similar. Cheers Joe -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 12:55 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Help with upgrade path I should add that the first suggestion I received on my new support ticket was to upgrade the Oracle 10g database to 12c. Unfortunately, as there are other applications pointing to it that aren't certified with 12c, I can't do this. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
I would not go with D either if I didn't want to pay my way through an upgrade. From your description your path is fairly straight forward with only the consideration about your database compatibility with your current applications and other applications that use the same database. Your options as I see it are: I. Check if installing the 12c clients for use of the AR Server would allow that client to connect successfully to the older database and not impact operations on the AR Server. II. Check if upgrading the database but leaving the oracle clients at your current client versions would impact those other applications that uses the current Oracle client for those apps. III Go with a dedicated databse for the AR System by installing as a new install and then migrate your current applications using your preferred choice of migration tools that are available for 8.1 Cheers Joe -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 12:38 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Help with upgrade path Greetings!!! I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our ARS system. I've contacted BMC for advice, however our support contract level is Basic... which is also the adjective I would use to describe my current level of customer satisfaction. Has anyone gone from ARS 7.1 to 8.1? How did you do it? If you don't want to wade thru my specifics, kindly preface your reply with TLDR before you explain your upgrade method. The specifics: Our production set up is ARS 7.1 patch 11 / Midtier7.0.01 patch 5/ Apache Tomcat 5.027 / Crystal Reports XI running on WinSvr 2003 SP2 against an Oracle 10g last patch database on RedHat Enterprise 4.0 I had thought to step thru and upgrade to 7.6 and then to 8.1 but was advised after opening a support ticket that since we have custom forms only and are not using ITSM or any other BMC app, we could go straight to 8.1 from 7.1. The compatibility matrix lists the minimums but states that any newer versions are supported for OS and database. Since hardware only gets upgraded when bond money exists about every 5-7 years at our school district, I asked for the latest/greatest. I cleared my choices/plan with support but since it was going to take a while to get the servers, I closed the ticket saying I would open another once I had my gear. My new servers are virtual; a WinSvr2012 R2 and a Oracle Linux 6 box. I put Oracle 12c on as the database. I had thought to install ARS 7.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy the production 10g AR schema over to the 12c user, then run 8.1 as an upgrade. That's essentially how I did it the last time and support confirmed that a number of people run their upgrades that way. But Oh-Oh! 7.1 is 32bit and doesn't want to install on my Win 64bit OS...Maybe both support and I missed that little hitch or perhaps I misunderstood. Anyhow, I opened a new ticket and asked if I could do the same thing but with 8.1 instead. In other words, install ARS 8.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy over the 10g AR schema to the 12c user, then run 8.1 again as an upgrade. Here are the answers I got back on my ticket (paraphrased): A) 7.1 isn't supported, B) I was free to experiment using the new install/delete data/move schema/run upgrade method but it may not work C) I can try to install 8.1 as new and use the Migrator to move over all my custom forms D) Contract professional services and pay BMC to help with my upgrade Option D isn't going to happen. So I am left with options B and C. The analyst on the first support ticket didn't think Migrator would be necessary since we aren't using ITSM. Thoughts on that (While I go read the migrator documentation)? Comments on option B? Thanks in advance! Carina ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Hi, 1. Install a new system with the new version. 2. Use RRR|Chive to migrate data (1 day to 4 weeks depending on size) 3. Do a delta data migration with RRR|Chive to catch up production 4. Stop production, do a final delta migration, switch server The total outage can be brought down to an hour or two. Best Regards - Misi, RRR AB, http://www.rrr.se (ARSList MVP 2011) Ask the Remedy Licensing Experts (Best R.O.I. Award at WWRUG10/11/12/13): * RRR|License - Not enough Remedy licenses? Save money by optimizing. * RRR|Log - Performance issues or elusive bugs? Analyze your Remedy logs. Find these products, and many free tools and utilities, at http://rrr.se. Greetings!!! I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our ARS system. I've contacted BMC for advice, however our support contract level is Basic... which is also the adjective I would use to describe my current level of customer satisfaction. Has anyone gone from ARS 7.1 to 8.1? How did you do it? If you don't want to wade thru my specifics, kindly preface your reply with TLDR before you explain your upgrade method. The specifics: Our production set up is ARS 7.1 patch 11 / Midtier7.0.01 patch 5/ Apache Tomcat 5.027 / Crystal Reports XI running on WinSvr 2003 SP2 against an Oracle 10g last patch database on RedHat Enterprise 4.0 I had thought to step thru and upgrade to 7.6 and then to 8.1 but was advised after opening a support ticket that since we have custom forms only and are not using ITSM or any other BMC app, we could go straight to 8.1 from 7.1. The compatibility matrix lists the minimums but states that any newer versions are supported for OS and database. Since hardware only gets upgraded when bond money exists about every 5-7 years at our school district, I asked for the latest/greatest. I cleared my choices/plan with support but since it was going to take a while to get the servers, I closed the ticket saying I would open another once I had my gear. My new servers are virtual; a WinSvr2012 R2 and a Oracle Linux 6 box. I put Oracle 12c on as the database. I had thought to install ARS 7.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy the production 10g AR schema over to the 12c user, then run 8.1 as an upgrade. That's essentially how I did it the last time and support confirmed that a number of people run their upgrades that way. But Oh-Oh! 7.1 is 32bit and doesn't want to install on my Win 64bit OS...Maybe both support and I missed that little hitch or perhaps I misunderstood. Anyhow, I opened a new ticket and asked if I could do the same thing but with 8.1 instead. In other words, install ARS 8.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy over the 10g AR schema to the 12c user, then run 8.1 again as an upgrade. Here are the answers I got back on my ticket (paraphrased): A) 7.1 isn't supported, B) I was free to experiment using the new install/delete data/move schema/run upgrade method but it may not work C) I can try to install 8.1 as new and use the Migrator to move over all my custom forms D) Contract professional services and pay BMC to help with my upgrade Option D isn't going to happen. So I am left with options B and C. The analyst on the first support ticket didn't think Migrator would be necessary since we aren't using ITSM. Thoughts on that (While I go read the migrator documentation)? Comments on option B? Thanks in advance! Carina ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
Less than 100, no style sheets. ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
Re: Help with upgrade path
My suggestion Take a backup of the Oracle 10g data and copy/restore it to the Oracle 12c (Your DBA could also do this with oracle DataPump). Install 8.1 on the new server against the copy/restored data. When installing it should ask you if you want to upgrade or start new in the database. Choose upgrade. (You do NOT need to have an existing set of ARS binaries on the new server to choose upgrade as this only refers to the database data) Fred -Original Message- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Carina Burns Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 11:38 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Help with upgrade path Greetings!!! I am turning to you all for suggestions for an upgrade path for our ARS system. I've contacted BMC for advice, however our support contract level is Basic... which is also the adjective I would use to describe my current level of customer satisfaction. Has anyone gone from ARS 7.1 to 8.1? How did you do it? If you don't want to wade thru my specifics, kindly preface your reply with TLDR before you explain your upgrade method. The specifics: Our production set up is ARS 7.1 patch 11 / Midtier7.0.01 patch 5/ Apache Tomcat 5.027 / Crystal Reports XI running on WinSvr 2003 SP2 against an Oracle 10g last patch database on RedHat Enterprise 4.0 I had thought to step thru and upgrade to 7.6 and then to 8.1 but was advised after opening a support ticket that since we have custom forms only and are not using ITSM or any other BMC app, we could go straight to 8.1 from 7.1. The compatibility matrix lists the minimums but states that any newer versions are supported for OS and database. Since hardware only gets upgraded when bond money exists about every 5-7 years at our school district, I asked for the latest/greatest. I cleared my choices/plan with support but since it was going to take a while to get the servers, I closed the ticket saying I would open another once I had my gear. My new servers are virtual; a WinSvr2012 R2 and a Oracle Linux 6 box. I put Oracle 12c on as the database. I had thought to install ARS 7.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy the production 10g AR schema over to the 12c user, then run 8.1 as an upgrade. That's essentially how I did it the last time and support confirmed that a number of people run their upgrades that way. But Oh-Oh! 7.1 is 32bit and doesn't want to install on my Win 64bit OS...Maybe both support and I missed that little hitch or perhaps I misunderstood. Anyhow, I opened a new ticket and asked if I could do the same thing but with 8.1 instead. In other words, install ARS 8.1 as a new install, delete the data, copy over the 10g AR schema to the 12c user, then run 8.1 again as an upgrade. Here are the answers I got back on my ticket (paraphrased): A) 7.1 isn't supported, B) I was free to experiment using the new install/delete data/move schema/run upgrade method but it may not work C) I can try to install 8.1 as new and use the Migrator to move over all my custom forms D) Contract professional services and pay BMC to help with my upgrade Option D isn't going to happen. So I am left with options B and C. The analyst on the first support ticket didn't think Migrator would be necessary since we aren't using ITSM. Thoughts on that (While I go read the migrator documentation)? Comments on option B? Thanks in advance! Carina ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years
