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SCSM Upgrade - What to do with the MPs?

Greg_TateGreg_Tate Customer IT Monkey ✭
in Service Manager
Hi all,

I'm planning our upgrade to 2016. Is there a helpful article that advises on the sequence of operations? For example, looking to know if I upgrade SCSM first, followed by the Cireson management packs. Or do I first remove the Cireson management packs, perform the upgrade, and then introduce the Cireson management packs for 2016?

We're using general version 5.0.10 for the portal. I'd like to bring it up to date as well. Should we upgrade SCSM first and then update the portal?

Thanks!

Answers

  • Nick_LugoNick_Lugo Customer IT Monkey ✭
    I'm looking for an answer to the exact same question.
  • Chad_AusterberryChad_Austerberry Customer IT Monkey ✭
    I'm looking for an answer to the exact same question.
  • Tom_HendricksTom_Hendricks Customer Super IT Monkey ✭✭✭✭✭
    1. Upgrade SCSM first
    2. Then upgrade your management packs
    3. Upgrade the portal last
    Note that your portal may not function (correctly?) between the first step and the last, so plan for some outage time, obviously.

    I had all my MP's, DLLs that need to be copied, and the Cireson installer staged and ready for after the SCSM upgrade, so it only took a few minutes to take care of all the Cireson apps.  If you tackle each one individually, it can take quite a bit longer, but it will work just the same.
  • Bill_CrumBill_Crum Customer IT Monkey ✭

    So you install the 2016 Cireson MPs right over top of the 2012 MPs, and this works for all Cireson Apps?

    I am just starting my planning, and from all I have read from Cireson, they sugest a migration rather than in place, but I am trying to keep my mind open to both, so we do not lose Microsoft Support if we run into a failure.


    Another question, on a Migration type upgrade, is there any way to migrate the Data Warehouse Data from the 2012 DW to the 2016 DW so we don't have to report on 2 DW's?

  • Tom_HendricksTom_Hendricks Customer Super IT Monkey ✭✭✭✭✭
    Not every approach is right for every situation, so as I am explaining the upgrade approach, I am not suggesting that a migration approach is "wrong" or "worse" in any way.  It is simply different.  They each have their own pros and cons.  If you have a consultant working for you who thinks the pros of migrating outweigh the cons for your environment, and you trust them, then I would take that advice and run with it.  :)

    To answer your question about the upgrade path, yes.  You install the 2016 MP's right over top of the 2012 R2 MP's.  That is what I did, and it accomplished what I wanted it to.  I followed Microsoft's upgrade guide when performing the steps as described above.  There was no loss of data and no loss of support.

    When we upgraded, I did not have to worry about your next question.  The SQL Server upgrade was painless, while the SCSM DW upgrade was less so.  It worked, but pay close, explicit instruction to each step and cut no corners.  My Prod environment was a breeze to upgrade (relatively speaking) but my lowers had issues with the upgrade that caused me to wipe out those DW's and start over, which was very easy.

    Again, this does not mean that migrating would not be a better choice for you, and I am also curious about whether the DW can be migrated rather than upgraded.  I simply want to present another potentially viable option that worked well in my particular case.
  • Bill_CrumBill_Crum Customer IT Monkey ✭

    Thanks Tom.

    I am going to build up my test environment to match my production environment, and test this extensively :).

  • damon_mulligandamon_mulligan Cireson Consultant Advanced IT Monkey ✭✭✭
    Are you planning on doing an in place upgrade, or build a 2016 environment and migrate?
  • Maria_jandtMaria_jandt Customer IT Monkey ✭
    Tom_Hendricks said:
    1. Upgrade SCSM first
    2. Then upgrade your management packs
    3. Upgrade the portal last
    Note that your portal may not function (correctly?) between the first step and the last, so plan for some outage time, obviously.

    I had all my MP's, DLLs that need to be copied, and the Cireson installer staged and ready for after the SCSM upgrade, so it only took a few minutes to take care of all the Cireson apps.  If you tackle each one individually, it can take quite a bit longer, but it will work just the same.
    When You say "Cireson installer staged", how do you mean ? 

    If I understand you correcly  an in-Place upgrade is possible ? and all Cireson MP works with an upgrade ?

    Thanks
    Regards
    Maria
  • Tom_HendricksTom_Hendricks Customer Super IT Monkey ✭✭✭✭✭
    By "staged" I simply mean that I had all the new management packs and DLL's from all Cireson products that needed to be replaced for 2016 copied to folders before I began the upgrade so that I could very quickly copy all the DLL's at once and very quickly import the MP's in succession, from the same folders.  In my case I used a powershell script, but it would still be fairly quick manually.  You would just want to be sure to import them in the correct order (which is indicated in the installation instructions for each Cireson product).

    In-place upgrade works fine.  Upgrading SCSM is both simple and difficult--the data warehouse upgrade is very demanding (make sure you read the documentation), but upgrading the management servers is extremely straightforward. Upgrading the Cireson products is as simple as copying the new DLLs from the 2016 version and importing the management packs from the new 2016 versions.  For the portal, just run the 2016 installer after uninstalling 2012, if I recall correctly.  Make sure you follow the installation guide on the Cireson support site, of course.  My memory of this is more than a year old.  :)
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