Question on Autosys Upgrade from R11.3 to R11.3.6 SP7

[Legacy User]

Hi All,

 

We are in process of upgrading the Autosys server but we don't have a DEV instances / nonprd instance to test the upgrade steps and checklist, so I would like to know the following:

1. Other than compatibility checks what are the things to keep in mind before upgrade.

2. Is there any specific binaries to perform upgrade or new version binaries (R11.3.6 SP7 in this case) will start the upgrade process during install process (Repair or Upgrade).

3. Sequence of Upgrade will be (Common Components -> Autosys Server -> WCC). Correct?

4. what will be the changes at database end? I mean, will the upgrade process made the necessary changes at the database? if yes, then what are those changes and do we need to take backup of specific items related to database?

5. From the Autosys point of view, we need to take the back up of EEM policies, WCC (users, flows, views), jobs objects, Autosys_secure. is there anything else to consider for backup? also is there a convenient way to take the backup of all the required items?

6. Most important, at any point of time, if we need to rollback, then what is the rollback procedure? will the rollback stops immediately (once the error encounters) and revert the changes, hence we will be back to R11.3.0 SP1 version?

7. Database changes made during upgrade process will be rolled back automatically and we will be able to work as earlier?

8. How to make sure that Rollback is done successfully and we are able to work successfully as earlier?

9. How much time is required to do the upgrade?

 

 

if there is any documentation around upgrade or experience / learning / findings please share since we wont be able to get multiple down times.

 

will raise the support ticket as well if required.

[Matthew Davies]

We've been taking complete database and filesystem backups before running the upgrade. We haven't backed up the EEM policies, but we extract them every few hours via safex anyway so could recover to that if needs be. We've reverted back to R11.3 from R11.3.6 SP6 and 7 in the labs with no issues, but once you start to roll the schedule forward you may find that difficult in a production environment.

 

Upgrade time is hard to say without knowing how large your environment is, in our development environment with 4 instances running in HA in took about 5 hours in total, including pre-implementation oracle and filesystem backups. We don't have WCC installed though.

[Legacy User]

HI Ankur,

 

Most of  responses on your questions are in the chapter Upgrade CA Workload Automation AE r11.3 or a Later Release to the Current Release at the link

 

https://docops.ca.com/ca-workload-automation-ae/11-4-2/en/upgrading/ae-upgrade/upgrade-ca-workload-automation-ae-r11-3-or-a-later-release-to-the-current-release

 

You need to raise a support cases for more details

 

Thanks and regards,

 

Faouzia

[Legacy User]

Thanks Faouzia, i have already gone through the upgrade link from ca docops and will required a support case if encounters a problem or issue during upgrade process.

[Legacy User]

Hi

 

In addition to previous useful update:

 

1. Other than compatibility checks what are the things to keep in mind before upgrade.

A:  System Packages have to be installed. For the complete list see:

      AE Operating System and Database Support - CA Workload Automation AE & Workload Control Center - CA Technologies Documen… 

 

 2. Is there any specific binaries to perform upgrade or new version binaries (R11.3.6 SP7 in this case) will start the upgrade process during install process (Repair or Upgrade).

 

A: The installer is able to detect that this in an automatic Upgrade

 

3. Sequence of Upgrade will be (Common Components -> Autosys Server -> WCC). Correct?

 

A: See links provided by Faouzia. It depends if all these products are installed or not on same machine

 

4. what will be the changes at database end? I mean, will the upgrade process made the necessary changes at the database? if yes, then what are those changes and do we need to take backup of specific items related to database?

 

A:  Stored Procedures are upgrades, changes to the schema are done , indexes are dropped and recreated automatically and so on...  All this stuff is done by the CreateAEDB.pl script located in $AUTOSYS/dbobj/<database type> directory which is triggered by the Upgrade process.

 

A: It is always good to save the database before starting the upgrade

 

5. From the Autosys point of view, we need to take the back up of EEM policies, WCC (users, flows, views), jobs objects, Autosys_secure. is there anything else to consider for backup? also is there a convenient way to take the backup of all the required items?

A:  While all these CCS/WCC/Autosys products are down, I would backup the entire /opt/CA directory tree along the Autosys  database and WCC database is not using internal Derby database

 

6. Most important, at any point of time, if we need to rollback, then what is the rollback procedure? will the rollback stops immediately (once the error encounters) and revert the changes, hence we will be back to R11.3.0 SP1 version?

 

A:  As soon as there is an error during the Upgrade process, an automatic rollback is done. But if this is not sufficient to recover, then restore the /opt/CA directory tree from point 5 and the database

 

7. Database changes made during upgrade process will be rolled back automatically and we will be able to work as earlier?

A: To be 100% safe, better to restore the database

 

8. How to make sure that Rollback is done successfully and we are able to work successfully as earlier?

A: If the database upgrade is successful with release 11.3.6 SP7, you can query the alamode table to get the AEDB_VERSION and BINARY_VERSION.

From my test server:

--------------------------

AEDB_VERSION 0
11.3.6.7.0

BINARY_VERSION 0
11.3.6.SP7

 

As said before, if there is any doubt by comparing the output of "autoflags -a" and the alamode table, restore the database

 

9. How much time is required to do the upgrade?

 

A: It all depends on the architecture

-  a) Full  HADS server or not.

- b) Have you installed all the OS prerequisites before the upgrade?

- c) Is there enough disk space to upgrade?

- d) Are you upgrading WCC and EEM  first then in a second stage Autosys?

 -e) are EEM and WCC running in HA mode?

 

 

Regards

Jean Paul

[Legacy User]

Hi Jean,

Thanks for your responses. it really helped a lot.

 

In addition to provide some background we have installed all autosys components (CCI, EEM, AE, WCC) on same machine and there is no application level HA. database is also on VM with no Dual event server mode. Hence, we have a OS level HA but not Application or database level HA.

 

Based on your response i have few questions on:

1. Sequencing - i am not clear with the instructions to upgrade for Command sponsor and igateway. Since Command sponsor was part of Common Components in older versions and in later versions its part of AE binaries / DVD, so how do we handle that during upgrade.

from the upgarde document link shared it seems that Common Component upgrade depends upon on command sponsor, igateway (linux2.6 or linux2.4 kernel) majorily

so what will be the sequence for common component upgrade?

 

2. Database backup - Will the VM / database snapshot will be sufficient to take the backup of database? or do we need to run some sql queries to take the backup?

 

3. Regarding WCC flows/views - Older version of WCC has montioring view, JSC etc but in later versions these views/features doesnt exist, so all the views or JSC or flow monitoring needs to be manually created and fitted as per new version feature, hence will exporting of these views/flows work in latest versions?

 

4. Since i am not a DBA guy, Can you please share the query to check the version AEDB_VERSION and BINARY_VERSION?

 

Once again thanks for your response and looking forward to your reply.

[Chandru.Venkataraman]

Ankur,

 

I'd strongly recommend setting up a dev (testing ground) environment similar to your prod with CCI, EEM, AE, WCC all in one box (which is anyway not the recommended configuration and people might say real world is different) and perform the upgrade there first. The exercise might be tedious, but will be worthwhile I assure.

 

Are you on Linux? or Windows? If Windows, EEM can't be upgraded in-place. You need to export the EEM applications, uninstall old EEM, install latest EEM and import the applications back.

 

Yes, VM/database snapshot will be sufficient for a backup. You may have to run CreateAEDB.pl in non-destructive mode (or RefreshAEDB.pl) if you choose to rollback.

 

As for migrating views from older WCC versions, please refer to the following documentation:

https://docops.ca.com/ca-workload-automation-ae/11-4-2/en/installing/ca-wcc-installation/migrate-monitoring-views 

 

SQLs to check  AEDB version and the WAAE version:

 

select str_val from ujo_alamode where type='BINARY_VERSION'
select str_val from ujo_alamode where type='AEDB_VERSION'

 

I hope this helps.

 

Cheers,

Chandru

[Legacy User]

Thanks Chandru, the information shared by CA really help us a lot in framing the project.

 

We have a DEV envt in place where everything is cloned as per PRD w.r.t. AUTOSYS and everything is on SUSE LINUX 11. so we indeed planning to do it on DEV first and see how it proceeds.

 

However, w.r.t. sequencing (Command Sponsor and igateway/EEM) whether we are on LINUX or WINDOWS, as per upgrade instructions we need to follow the same procedure irrespective of OS and need to uninstall the EEM and installing it fresh and then import the users, policies and other stuff. right? 

 

Also, based on your experience and dealing with product and support issues, what will be your views on:

1. Since we are upgrading from EOS - Autosys R11.3.0 SP1 INC 3 to Autosys R11.3.6 SP7, will that be a major upgrade or minimal?

2. Will the upgrade of autosys be a better choice or installing it fresh  on new servers will be a better choice?

 

Once again, thanks for your experience knowledge and looking forward to your reply. 

[Chandru.Venkataraman]

Standing up new servers is preferred considering the jump from 11.3. SP1 to 11.3.6 SP7.

You can then run CreateAEDB.pl (from 11.3.6 SP7) against a copy of the 11.3 SP1 AEDB.

[Sunish Mittal]

Thanks CA team for all your inputs, i am also in to the same situation where i need to choose what will be the best or good choice to move to AUTOSYS R11.3.6 SP7  - Upgrade or fresh install? 

 

considering the inputs and architectural changes involved from R11.3 to R11.3.6, it seems to be a major upgrade,

am i correct?

 

Also, what looks more important is how common component (EEM, command sponsor) can be upgraded. will that be possible / fine :

1. Uninstall Common Components of R11.3.0  and do a fresh install of common components of R11.3.6 SP7.

2. Upgrade AUTOSYS SERVER / WAAE.

3. Uninstall WCC and do a fresh install of WCC for  R11.3.6 SP7.

4. once its done, then we can export WCC users, eem policies etc in to new upgraded version.

[Antony Askew]

At the risk of sounding like a boring old party pooper ( it wouldn't be the first time ) I have a few observations based on many deployments and upgrades.  Take from these whatever you wish, or ignore them all:

 

1. Do not install EEM/CC, AE and WCC all on one machine.  This upgrade scenario is one great reason why you should not do this.  Its easy to get in a tangle about which bits to upgrade first.  In some cases it even becomes impossible to upgrade everything and you get stuck.  If you are genuinely stuck for hardware, put AE on 1 server and EEM/WCC on the other.  This way, if you hit a problem with EEM/WCC at least your workloads keep going.  You can also stagger upgrades by doing EEM/WCC first (assuming the new EEM/WCC versions support the existing AE).
2. Do not install CCI unless you actually need it.  If you are using the old Event Management, its going away, and has been replaced with something way more powerful in r11.3.6 SP7.
3. If going from r11.3 to r11.3.6 (SPx), as Chandru says, its a much better idea to set up r11.3.6 (SPx) instances separately and migrate across.  There are many advantages to doing it this way.  You can use the same agents and worry about those later. 
   You can duplicate everything in the new environment, then at cut over time its easy to stop stuff on the old environment and start on the new.  If you hit any issues, you can instantly switch back to the old.  You also don't have any of these 'upgrade' issues.
4. Without wishing to cause offence to anyone, a lot of these posts indicate a lack of understanding of how to carry out these projects.  Forums like this can be a double edged sword sometimes.
   Give very strong consideration to bringing in CA Services, or independent ones, to help you.  They can look at your current environments and prepare appropriate upgrade/migration plans specific to your needs.  Also they can carry out some or all of the work and provide knowledge transfer or education.  Justifying the cost of some services against the impact of AutoSys outage is usually straightforward.
5. You must have a non-prod environment.  There is no justifiable reason not to.
6. Do not install EEM/CC, AE and WCC all on one machine.  Just saying it again.

 

Good luck!

[Legacy User]

Hello 

I fully agree with Antony. In addition, this is also a good opportunity to revisit some job flows to simplify/optimize them.

It can be done in a second step (after the initial migration) with CA services or independent  ones

Regards

Jean Paul