Hi,

We are planning to upgrade from wM 8.2 to 9.8. Some where I have read that latest service pack(SP3) of 8.2 should be applied before upgrading to 9.8. I would like to know is it mandatory to apply SP3 or can we directly upgrade from 8.2 to 9.8. Please clarify.

Hello,

Yes it is mandatory to apply the latest service pack before going for the migration.
Please read the “Critical Upgrade Requirements” section of the upgrade guide. There is it clearly mentioned that it is mandatory to apply the latest service pack before migration.

Thanks & Regards,
Abhishek

Hi,

dependend on component the latest service pack is either SP1 (i.e. MWS), SP2 or SP3.

Additionally after updating to the latest service pack it might be neccessary to apply the latest fixes.

Regards,
Holger

Just to confirm again, is Service pack or fix install required on old environment for side by side upgrade also.

When I say side by side its installing new version in different folder or new server.

The reason I am asking is we don’t want to touch existing environment while upgrade.

Hello Venkata

A side-by-side upgrade does not require patching of the source server.

Regards

Thanks DCova

I also think the same, webMethods upgrade doco is not clear on this, bad… It says…Now they say they support only side-by-side in future releases, does the below step still needed?

From 9.10 upgrade guide,
Prepare the Old Environment for Upgrade
Install Fixes on Old Products
Install the latest product fixes on the old ActiveTransfer, API-Portal, webMethods
Broker, CentraSite, Infrastructure Data Collector, My webMethods Server, Optimize,
and Process Engine. For instructions on installing fixes, see Using the Software AG Update
Manager and the fix readme files. After you install the fix on the old product, start the old
product.

Hello Venkata

SAG published a document titled: Supported Upgrade Paths for Software AG Products

The document describes the supported upgrade methods of the different product versions. Installing the latest fixes is always recommended by SAG as the most cautious approach. I cannot disagree with their recommendation. However, we upgraded side-by-side from IS 8.2 to 9.9 successfully without first applying the latest fixes to 8.2. We converted from broker to Universal Messaging during the upgrade successfully.

Some manual intervention was required. For example, modifying a property value in publishable doc type, changed the encoding type to protocol buffers. Modifications to source code was not required.

Regards

Thanks Dcova for the input.

Did U go thru intermediate hop 8.2->9.8->9.9

Did U apply fixes to 9.8 before moving to 9.9, any DB configuration fixes.

You have to apply the service pack first and apply the latest fixes on top of it , And then do the migration to 9.8.

As per the document, you will not be able migrate directly from 8.2 to 9.10 (latest), You have to go through the 9.8.

1. 8.2 service pack and latest Fix installation
   2)9.8 installation

You should follow the supported path as mentioned in softwareAG docs as there are lot of dependencies.

Thanks.

Hi,

you should definitely follow the supported upgrade pathes and it is recommended to bring the old products to the last SP and Fix level befor upgrading.

Otherwise the migration scripts might not be working properly (i.e. not covering all features).
On the other side if you need assistance from SAG during the migration the first thing you are being asked for is the fix level.

As a Best practice do a full regression test on the old environment after updating and then do the same on the new environment after migration.

Regards,
Holger

I should add that we did not use the SAG provided migration utility. We migrated the packages manually. This is the reason why applying the latest fixes to the source webMethods IS was not critical. And, we did not make the hop to an intermediate and supported IS version. We went directly from 8.2 to 9.9.

Our installation is not large so all the manual configuration required because we not use the migration tool was not time consuming. For example, we have only about 40 custom packages in our installation, and our production installation is just a cluster of two IS servers. So the manual configuration was not a burden.

Now, I am not suggesting that my method is superior. I’m just simply describing what worked for us.

Regards

What are the options we have if we don’t want to touch the existing environment? Any ideas?

Does the following work?

1. Install fresh 9.10 Environment, from 9.10 deployer connect to 8.2 source server and migrate assets, do config manually as there are not much, also we don’t need live transaction data to be migrated across. Probably same as Dcova did, but we have MWS assests as well along with packages.
2. Create a copy of existing 8.2 DEV environment and apply SP and fixes on top of it and follow upgrade process including intermediate hops and use the new 9.10 DEV as baseline and deploy assets to subsequent regions.

Any more?

Hi Venkata,

as Deployer usually does not allow cross deployment between versions you will have to create the deployments from the 8.2 server, migrate the deployment to projects to 9.10 and then deploy them to the 9.10 instance.

Option 2 will apply anyway (at least regarding deployments from DEV to Test/QA and Production).

Please make sure that you have introspected the Build-In-Services Guides carefully for deprecated/replaced/removed/changed services resp. input/output variables.

Prepare for thorough regression testing on both environments: before and after migration.

There is a Webinar regarding upgrades and roadmaps on Thursday (19.05.2016).
Might be useful to attend it.

Regards,
Holger

Venkata – If in-case if you come across some issues in the upgradation process,you tried but could not able to fix. In this case does SAG helps you as you didn’t follow the pattern what they suggested.

@Holger : Please share the link to register, attend the webinar.

Thanks,

Hi,

here is the link to the general overview of webinars:

http://www.softwareag.com/corporate/res/webinars/webinars_date/default.asp

The webinar is labeled “webMethods Update & Roadmap”.

Regards,
Holger

@ DCova
Hi,
I am interested in the manual process you have taken because our MWS is very minimal and we also have 2 IS instances only. We basically migrate everything else manually and I don’t like the idea of 2 non-automatic hops for one migration, especially for a dog like MWS. Could I please ask you to elaborate a bit on what you did to migrate MWS manually? We only use MWS to maintain partners’ profiles after they got rid of Trading Networks console. Hardly anything else.
Cheers.