Is WebFOCUS 9.0.4 a consolidation of 9.0.3 and the hot fixes and service packs for that release? When do we expect the fix to the bugs in 9.1? We are trying to decide to upgrade now or wait for 9.1 with fixes or better a consolidated release.

[William Huffman]

Is WebFOCUS 9.0.4 a consolidation of 9.0.3 and the hot fixes and service packs for that release? When do we expect the fix to the bugs in 9.1? We are trying to decide to upgrade now or wait for 9.1 with fixes or better a consolidated release.

[Guest]

Hi William

Big picture, I think you're better off going to 9.1, but lets find out a few more things:

1) What release are you coming from?

2) Can you get new VM's just for your new version to reside on?

2) Can you get a separate database to install your repository onto?

3) Do you mind saying who you're working for? Several of us here have some techsupport experience and might be able to make a more specific recommendation if we happen to remember your installation.

If you have room to install 9.1 and a new database that you can use as the repository, I think I'd suggest the clean install first and experiment with migrating your code and settings manually. This way, with truly separate VM's, you can do a lot of trial and error on installing. If it's going rough, just reset the VM back to it's beginning state, recreate the repository tables and start again trying a different tack. When you're done, you'll have 2 environments up at the same time for users to do Acceptance Testing with.

If you're stuck upgrading in place, then l would just make sure you get copies / snapshots of your machines so you can easily restore if you need to.

To make yourself some backups, here are just some of the things I'd try to get a copy of first before you end up stepping on things. I'll assume WIndows for this example - just change the directory names to unix format and save all these someplace where you can find them later.

Infrastructure

• Snapshots of your VMs so you can easily restore.
• Database Backups to make sure you can restore your repository in case you have to.

WF Reporting Server side:

• Make a savediag of each of your severs. Save them in a place you can access after the upgrade.
• You might want to zip your ibiapps folder.
• Grab your ibiprofilesadmin.cfg and any other profiles (*.prf) under this folder.
• Anything you need under your X:ibisrv82wfscatalogcustom that you need?
• Other folks will have more ideas for you here. Usually the savediag gets about everything you need.

On the Client side:

• I'd just zip the whole drive:ibiWebFOCUS82clientwfcetc folder.
• Also save the drive:ibiWebFOCUS82config folder if your version of WebFOCUS is new enough to have one of these. I don't think you really will need the sub-folders, but you definitely would like to keep a copy of the contents in this folder.
• If you have any custom servlet filters that might reside under V:ibiWebFOCUS82webappswebfocusWEB-INFlib and conf, grab only the files you need. Some older Single Sign On servlet filters might require you to add an extra jar file but this is unusual. I have to do it, but most people will not. Cross that bridge if we come to it.
• You may have things in your web application server (default is Tomcat) where you might want the conf folder from.
• Anybody else want to add on things to copy?

Get your favorite file comparison tool out and be ready to do lots of comparing. I use Beyond Compare from scootersoftware.com but everybody has their own favorite.

If an in place upgrade works for you, that's great - I'd still want a copy of all the files listed above for my archives. I will tell you that we used to get cases where a problem only occurred when an upgrade was done. Those can be harder to find. Just something to bear in mind if you hit an odd situation and open a case, be sure to let them know you did an upgrade from x -> y so they are aware of it.

Hope that helps.

 

[Guest]

Hey WIlliam, I also wanted to point out that IBI is offering some help in upgrading your applications.

I'm not sure what all this entails other than them looking over your code for you, but in your spot, you might want to take them up on this:

WebFOCUS Technology Refresh Program | TIBCO Software

I think it's free for the analysis.

Toby

[William Huffman]

Hi Toby:

Thank you for the detailed response. We are on version 9.0. In the past, we have done upgrade in place. I work for San Mateo County, CA. We use Windows servers. We have always done VM snapshots and DB backups before upgrading so we can revert back to where we were is there is an issue with the upgrade.