Windows MS SQL database password change

[Lester Chew]

I need to have the database account's password changed.  I have two AE servers and Windows SQL server.

I have an ODBC Data Source System DSN defined with database name, user id and password configured.  I also have in the ucsrv.ini an sqldriverconnect ODBCVAR set with user id and encrypted password along with JDBC sqldriverconnect for jdbc.

I am certain that the ucsrv.ini is loaded when the Service manager is started.  Does AE use any information in the ODBC Data Source for anything or is this only there to verify you can connect to the AE database?

If the ODBC Data Source is not used by AE, then to shorter the outage, I would think the below would work

1.  Change all the AE utilities to the new encrypted password on two AE servers.  I assume these utilities are only used when the AE database maintenance is running.
2.  change ucsrv.ini to the new encrypted password on two AE servers
3.  change the ODBC Data Source System to the new password but don't perform a test connect yet on two AE servers.
4.  stop the service manager on both servers
5.  have the dba change the AE database password
6.  start AE1 service manager, wait till all processes are started.  If the CP, WP and JWP starts, then I should be good.
7.  Test using AWI
8.  start AE2 service manager and monitor processes startup.  If the CP, WP and JWP starts, then I should be good.

The only outage is when i stop both service manager until i start one service manager.

If AE uses the ODBC Data Source, and calls it dynamically, then I need to stop the service manager first before I do all the password changes

Any thoughts?

[Pothen Verghese]

The password under ODBC data source is only to test the ODBC definition/connection.

AE uses the password defined within the *.ini files for authentication and connection to the database via the ODBC data source defined. It is the AE Server Processes (CP,WP,JWP,JCP) and the utilities that directly connect to the database.

Regards
Pothen

[Lester Chew]

That's good to know.  So are the steps I outline the best way to minimize outage leaving out step 3 to update after all of the steps are completed?  There is no way around an outage right?  Like I can't do one AE server, change the password and then do the other AE server.  I would suspect that once the password is changed on the database, the 2nd AE server will begin to fail.

Thanks for your follow up Pothen

[Pothen Verghese]

Aren't you running AE on Windows? Yet you are concerned about outage with this change which is minor compared to restarts you may have to otherwise do on your Windows Servers normally?

Anyway be aware of all the components that use the DB in your environment. Analytics is missing from the above. Test the process in a test environment before doing it on production. 

Regards
Pothen

[Lester Chew]

Thank you Pothen for your input.  I did forget to add the change to the Analytic backend's application.properties but was on my list of things to change.

Yes I am running AE on Windows.  My goal is to minimize outage, however small or large it might be.  That is why I am asking for input.  The less impact, the less Operations has to do to return scheduling back to normal.

I am planning to execute this in our DEV environment.  Just wanted to see if I covered everything since I have not done this before.  This list I provided is the only components I was aware of, other than forgetting to list the change for Analytics.

Thank you.