Spectrum

[Paul Tayler]

Hi,
 I am planning a migration of Spectrum off Windows 2003 to Windows 2016 and to upgrade Spectrum from 9.2.1.6 to 10.4.  If you have insights or advice you can offer please do so.
My plan is currently as follows:
    Step 1 Migrate existing Spectrum 9.2 to New servers (Windows 2016)
         Create new Windows 2016 Servers
         Migrate data as per "Migrate and Upgrade on Windows"
         Perform installation of Spectrum 9.3 on each of
             Primary SpectroServer
             Secondary SpectroServer
             OneClick Server
    Step 2 Upgrade Fault Tolerant System using the new servers
         Follow procedure in "Upgrade Fault-Tolerant SpectroSERVERs and OneClick Web Servers" replacing each server with the new upgraded server
    Step 3 Upgrade to Spectrum 10.2
         Follow the procedure in "Upgrade Fault-Tolerant SpectroSERVERs and OneClick Web Servers" using in-place upgrades
    Step 4 Upgrade to Spectrum 10.4
         Follow the procedure in "Upgrade Fault-Tolerant SpectroSERVERs and OneClick Web Servers" using in-place upgrades

One concern I have is that it may be necessary to use Windows 2012 as an intermediary step to maintain support for spectrum.
Thanks
Paul

[Catalin Farcasanu]

Whenever you're migrating from one OS to another, there's not specifically need to update the entire installation. There's a procedure in the documentation to migrate the SSdb and DDM from one installation to another. This is the way that I usually upgrade and change the OS on the machines.

If you don't have any customisations in your SSdb maybe it would a better idea to migrate the configuration using Modeling Gateway. This way you skip some upgrade steps. Check the compatibility between versions and you can install directly 10.4 and load the information from an older version. I've seen recently some technical documents with some errors related to modelinggateway and imports, errors due to changing of some attributes ids.

Another aspect would be that starting with 10.2 huge landscape mode was introduced, allowing you to have 10.000 devices and 1.000.000 models on one landscape. It not possible to migrate an old landscape (pre 10.2) and have the new huge landscape mode. 

Fresh install would be better to loose the noise from the old installations. It's a good opportunity to start a clean installation. 

I would test the migration using modelinggateway as migration tool, considering all the above mentioned aspects. 

9.2.x is not in support for some years now, so I doubt you'll have any support from Broadcom over this. It would be under best effort support, if they have the time. Way to complicated to go trough several OS upgrade and several in-place applications upgrade in the same time and having it working. Furthermore doing this having no support if problems arise.

Test everything in advance, install new machines with the latest OS supported and then switch off the entire old system and start the new one. That would be the easiest way possible.

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Senior Consultant
SolvIT Networks
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[Joseph Ackley]

You can migrate the SpectroSERVER database directly from 9.2 to 10.2.

Reference https://techdocs.broadcom.com/content/broadcom/techdocs/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/spectrum/10-4/installing-and-upgrading/upgrading/loading-ca-spectrum-r9-2-ssdb-models-to-r10-2.html

Then, after migrating from 9.2 to 10.2, you can migrate 10.2 to 10.4 on a Windows 2016 system.

Joe

[Antony Wardle]

would you consider upgrading spectrum before the server upgrades?

If you can do this, then you'll be able to simplify the process.

I'm guessing that you are looking at the support matrix about what you can and can't do.

9.2 -> 9.4

9.4 -> 10.2

10.2 -> 10.4

Once you've got a higher version, you can then save the database and then copy that to your Server 2016 system
and then load that after you've installed spectrum

Also, be aware of this issue and tidy up where required

https://ca-broadcom.wolkenservicedesk.com/external/article?articleId=130360

This can prevent the webclient from working correctly.

Other things to consider. I have spectrum installed on a D drive and my nightly DB backups go to an E Drive.
That way, C drive issues don't impact Spectrum.

I'm currently on 10.3.1 from memory

Things that I noticed when doing an upgrade. Sometimes it can take a long time. Keep an eye on the logs, as sometimes, a lock file is
left open, and the installation stops waiting for it. So, just delete it and it will carry on.


good luck!

[Glenn Shoemake]

Please be aware that Spectrum 10.4 does not use the GUI installer for SRAdmin and Spectrum, therefore if you want to use Windows 2016 you will need to do a silent install.  For that reason it may be better to stay with Windows 2012 or 2012 R2 instead of 2016.

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/content/broadcom/techdocs/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/spectrum/10-4/release-information/known-anomalies.html