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Re: Online upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23

 
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Kehad Snydewel
Frequent Advisor

Online upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23

Hi

Is it possible to upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23 without any data loss? The reason I ask is that I have SAP, and other critical databases running on 11.11, but I wish to upgrade to HP-UX11.23, without jeopardising my data or my databases.

Thanks
5 REPLIES 5
Peter Leddy_1
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Online upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23

Hi,

You will find by doing a quick search of the forum that it is indeed possible to perform an upgrade HOWEVER it is not really recommended.

It is a much better and safer approach to perform a fresh installation of the OS, patches, databases, applications etc.

HTH,

Peter
Wim Rombauts
Honored Contributor

Re: Online upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23

As stated above, an upgrade is possible, documented and supported.
I never did it myself, but other threas on this forum say it's risky. IF you don't want to jeopardise your date, maybe upgrading is not a good choice.

Another option : Can you add a few more disks to your system ? Or do you have a few spare disks ? Are there periods that you can easily schedule downtime ?
Then : do a clean-install of HP-UX 11.23 on those extra disks and fully configure your OS. As long as you are not completely finished, you can allways reboot your system back to HP-UX 11.11, so that is really a no-risk procedure.
Steven E. Protter
Exalted Contributor

Re: Online upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23

Shalom,

upgrade/ux will jepardize your ability to provide service.

Note if the back end db for SAP is Oracle, they don't even support upgrade/ux as a method of updating the OS. They have told me in the past that I need to do a clean install of the database after such a procedure.

What should be done:
1) Cold install of OS.
2) Install of required patches
3) Installation of back end database.
4) Installation of SAP.
5) If you choose to do this on new hardware (a good idea) migrate your data.

upgrade/ux is not a good way to avoid downtime or short circuit the upgrade process. It often fails.

SEP
Steven E Protter
Owner of ISN Corporation
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Andrew Young_2
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: Online upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23

Hi.

I would agree with Steven. Upgrade/UX should only be used as a very last resort.

Doing an upgrade will take a lot of preperation. Firstly make sure that all your hardware is supported on 11.23. Some SCSI devices are no longer supported. Some older ethernet adaptors and consoles as well. You will need to check and update firmware revisions on your servers, including any HBA's on your system. In fact you will need to check firmware on your entire SAN infrastructure and any tape libraries attached too.

Secondly make sure your filesystems are compatible. The Base JFS versions differ between v11.11 and v11.23. Make sure your data filesystems are not mounted until the very end as they may be converted and you may not be able to roll back without breaking something.

Thirdly make sure you have enough diskspace on your boot disks. You will need lots.

Make sure you have all the required patches available especially the C header files and the linker (ld). I would recommend you create a depot on disk on the server with all of this including the installer files and latest quality packs - loading from DVD or CD will take twice to three times as long. Remember to include java in your list of new software to load.

Do a complete audit of all software on your system to make sure its certified under 11.23.

Also check your kernel parameters, make sure there are no formulas in them, what can happen is that some formulas may be dependant on kernel parameters that have now been obsoleted or changed. Disk cache is one instance of kernel parameters that have changed between versions.

Lastly you will need to relink your Oracle DBMS when complete.

A warning: I have never ever had an upgrade using Update/UX work first time round. To make matters worse I have only once ever had it work on the second time round. Anticipate problems and having to roll back. Also do not underestimate how long running Update-UX actually takes, its not that quick especially on older hardware.

I would not recommend this route.

Regards

Andrew Y

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes
Bob E Campbell
Honored Contributor

Re: Online upgrade from HP-UX11.11 to HP-UX11.23

Lots of good advice here, but you feel a need to move to 11.23 without doing a cold-install. Only you know all of your reasons for doing so and only you can decide what is right for your environment.

If you move to 11.23 via update or cold-install it is always possible that you might decide that moving was a mistake. While DRD is not available on 11.11, you still have a number of options available to make sure your system can get back to 11.11. Ignite-UX, split mirrors, and installing to a new disk are all ways to make sure you can recover from problems when moving to 11.23.

By far the safest option is to purchase a new system and install 11.23 (or 11.31) on it. Whatever is forcing the OS upgrade is placed on the new machine while you keep the other data and apps where they are. As the applications are migrated to 11.23 they can be moved to the new system. If you tell me that your company will lose $10k/hour if that system is out of production then the two box solution can begin to seem pretty cheap.

The OS should be able to handle an 11.11 to 11.23 update, but HP cannot speak to your applications. Regardless of install or update, do the homework on your applications to avoid having to explain why you needed to use some of those recovery options.