HPUX upgrade from 10.2 to 11 or 11i?

[Subhendu]

Hi,
We have an HPUX upgrade plan. Right now the version is 10.2. My queries as follow,
1. Should we go for 11 or 11i. What are the major differences between them?
2.What is the minimum h/w requirements for this upgrade.
3. Are the risks associated to 11i greater than 11.0?

Thank you in advance
Subhendu

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

I would highly recommend not attempting to upgrade from 10.20 to 11.x
It is far better to do a cold install. There are many postings in the forums about this subject. Do a search and you will see.

Most of the newer hardware only run 11i anyway. This is because of the online changes that can be made to components etc. and virtual partitioning. There a number of feature over and above 11.0, including a number of dynamically changeable kernel parameters (no reboot required)
11i has been out for 3 years now, no risk. We have many production servers running 11i that are going fantasically well.

Have a look at the release notes:

http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/os/11i/index.html#Release%20Notes

[Ravi_8]

Hi,

Majority of the people here are recommending not to go for upgrade, clean install is the best way to go.

1. I opt for 11i ( due to it's flexibility than 11.0)
2. The hardware which run 11.0 can also run 11i
3. no risks in 11i compared to 11.0

[Juan Manuel López]

There are a very useful document on docs.hp.com called Update to HP-Ux 11.i
This document will help you to update your system and will resolve all your cuestions about version and hardware dubs.

Juanma.

[Pete Randall]

Do a cold install of 11i. 11.0 has been out since 1997 and is due to be discontinued 02/29/04:
http://www.software.hp.com/RELEASES-MEDIA/history/slide2.html

Make sure your server is capable of running 11i:
http://devrsrc1.external.hp.com/STK/serversupport.html

Make sure you have enough memory (I wouldn't even consider running 11i without 4GB) and enough disk space (also at least 4GB for the root volume group).

Do an Ignite backp of your 10.20 system (twice) before you begin the process.

And good luck,

Pete

[Steven E. Protter]

If your hardware is certified for 11i, I recommend a cold install of 11i. Though the upgrade process has been cleaned up, it is still problematic.

At my hands on with 11i class in Atlanta last June the failure rate in an HP lab was over 35%.

You need to make sure you have adequate memory, since 11i does tend to use more resources just for the OS.

SEP

[John Bolene]

Hey Pete, I am running 11i on my C110 and I found it difficult to install 4G of memory. I finally got it shoehorned in, but some of the memory sticks are just lying around in the case.

I did have to dedicate a 4G drive for the system and have another 4G drive for the other stuff.

I would also recommend 11i because HP only likes to support 2 versions. The next version of 11i will be out in 2004 and that is when 11.0 will go off support.

[doug hosking]

Assuming your hardware is current enough, I would definitely recommend 11i over 11.00. It's more reliable, requires fewer patches, has better performance, works on newer hardware, has a longer support life, generally gets more priority than 11.00 when new patches are needed, is highly compatible with 10.20 and 11.00, has some additional features, ...
In short, if your hardware is current enough,
you have a lot to gain and very little to risk
by going with 11i instead of 11.00.

Can you describe your current hardware and the types of applications that are most important to you? Knowing that would help us better answer the question. Without knowing more, I'd
suggest a cold install (not an upgrade) of 11i as the default plan.

[KCS_1]

hi,Subhendu

Read HP'S LITTLE TALK


benefits of transitioning to HP-UX 11.0/11i from HP-UX 10.20 from HP



HP-UX 11.0/11i continues the evolution of 64-bit technology into the mainstream of IT computing. HP-UX 10.10 incorporated very large file systems, while HP-UX 10.20 delivered large individual file size. Now, HP-UX 11.0/11i enable large memory addressing (up to 4 TB of RAM), allowing the execution of large applications and data sets, new hardware enablement, additional software functionality, and various HP-UX applications bundled into Operating Environments. HP-UX 11i is the recommended next-level enterprise release for all HP-UX systems currently running HP-UX 10.x or 11.0.

Very large file systems allow systems to achieve faster performance by avoiding performance-reducing disk swapping. You can benefit from extremely fast decision support, data warehousing, and online transaction processing, as well as from scaling to support thousands of online users simultaneously.

HP-UX 11.0/11i also is available in a 32-bit version for PA-7x00-based systems, and gives owners of K- and T-Class systems (based on PA-8x00) the choice of either a 32- or 64-bit operating system. For the first time, with 64-bit HP-UX 11.0/11i, you can run 32-bit applications and 64-bit applications at the same time on 64-bit platforms. Thus, you only upgrade to 64-bits those applications that can benefit from 64-bit computing.


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[Sam McKnight]

In response to Pete's comments, let me ask about RAM and disk capacity. I am considering buying a C3600. It was offered with 1GB RAM and 18 GB of disk space. I would install 11i.

Because 11i uses 4 GB of disk space, I already figured I needed 36 GB of disk space. It sounds like I need more RAM, too, if I use the full set of 11i. Can anyone help?

[doug hosking]

Sam, don't take the 4GB memory comment too literally. While it's true that some design tradeoffs have been made that treat memory as less precious than in older releases, 11i should run fine on a C3600 with 1 GB of memory depending on your application load. I've been timesharing with about 8 other users on a D370 running 11i with only .75 GB of memory for several years. Response time is fine and there's very little memory contention. For that load, it's not worth our effort to add more memory.

Would I recommend this memory configuration if my business depended on a huge Oracle database on a server? No way, especially with memory so much cheaper than in past years. It would be silly to skimp on memory on such a system.

Use common sense in how much memory you need, especially on a low-end system like a C3600. Pay attention to properly tuning your kernel, especially for things like dbc_max_pct where a misconfiguration can really affect system responsiveness when memory is relatively scarce. If real-life testing shows that you need more memory, by all means add at least enough to make your applications run well. But don't misinterpret the comment to mean that 11i can't be booted on less than 4 GB.