VMS upgrade 7.2 to 7.3-1

[Patrick_42]

Hi Experts,

I am being pushed by management to upgrade a mixed VMS cluster consisting of VAX OpenVMS 7.2 and Alpha OpenVMS 7.2-1 to version 7.3-1.

There are 2 VAXs sharing one software shadowed DSA system disk and 2 alphas sharing another software shadowed DSA system disks.

And most important of all, there is a number of obsoleted layered products like TDMS, ACMS 4.2, BEA message queue 4.0, ... being used on the production system and the application team seems has no resource to do application upgrade.

I would like to ask everyone of you what important things I should pay attention to.

And, will there be any binary image compatibility problem if I just do the OS upgrade by just ignoring layer products installed on the cluster?

Best Regards,
Patrick.

[Rob Buxton]

Seems like it may be a case of "suck it and see"!

The good side is that you have shadowed system disks.

Split the shadow set and update just one of the drives.
You could then boot in the remaining VAX or Alpha from that disk and test it.

Once you're happy then you'd reform the shadow set to the updated disk.
Obviously the above is a very generic view of the steps needed.
Occasionally I've needed to relink images after an upgrade (Oracle RDB) but I cannot comment on your products.

[Martin Johnson]

I would review 7.3-1 for new functionality and bug fixes. Are any of these relevant to you? If not, there is no real purpose in doing the upgrade - no benfits, all risks.

You should also confirm that all your layered products will run under 7.3-1. If you can't get confirmation, assume the worst and ask management what are the plans for replacing the unconfirmed products. These products should be replaced prior to doing the upgrade. Also, try to put a cost on downtime of your applications - not just for the upgrade, but if the applications won't work due to unsupported layered products.

HTH
Marty

[Patrick_42]

Thanks Johnson,

My thinking is similar to yours.

I suppose the only pressing reason for the upgrade is there is some fiber channel disk driver upgrade to well distribute interrupt to multi-CPU instead of only goes to CPU 0 in my current Alpha VMS 7.2-1.

Is there another path I can opt for instead doing the VMS version upgrade?

Patrick.

[Guy Peleg]

Hello Patrick,

ACMS should be upgraded to V4.4B. V4.2 will
not work on V7.3-1. BEA message queue 4.0 does
work on V7.3-1 however you it is recommended
to run the latest patch (RP52 for example).

RDB is not mentioned in your question but if
you are running ACMS you are probably running
RDB as well. RDB should be upgraded to support
V7.3-1. You do need to upgrade the layer products but you do not need to rebuild your application.

Indeed this is not an easy upgrade. If you do
not have the resources for it you might upgrade
to V7.2-2. This is a supported version of VMS
(unlike V7.2-1) and the upgrade is much easier.
Everything running under V7.2-1 should run without problem on V7.2-2. V7.2-2 will not
get you interrupt distribution.

And last but not least, TDMS is available on
Alpha. If you are interested please contact
me offline (guy.peleg@hp.com)

I hope this helps.

Guy

[Connie Tate]

Patrick,

If you are interested in a comprehensive list of products and their version compatibility, HP provides a support matrix at the following website.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/os/swroll/index.html

The Software Rollout report does have a curious habit of not including all versions of the same products together, so use a CTRL-F (find) to search the listing.

Good luck,
Connie