Re: upgrade to v7r2 or v7r3 -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi

I just did two V7R1 to V7R3 upgrades in the last week without any of the
issues reported in the recent thread you referred to. I have done quite a
number of upgrades over the years - maybe not as many as some on this list
but a fair number nevertheless - so maybe that accounted for it being what
I would consider relatively painless. Getting the preparation PTFs and
production compatibility right is usually the key to an easy upgrade.

I would make a list of the 3rd party applications and utilities on the
systems and IBM LPPs and then work through the Memo to users for *both*
releases and see if anything can't be upgraded to V7R3. If it all ticks off
as "V7R3 compatible/certified" then I would look to make that the target
version.

Do the same thing with any 3rd party tools and LPP products - i.e. check
with the vendor to see if the current version is supported or
requires additional work to go to a new release. That may colour your
thinking on what the easiest upgrade is. You will want to get the upgrade
steps for all these products as some products e.g. WebSphere can require
additional steps like changing JVMs etc to prepare for the upgrade.

V7R2 Memo to Users

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_72/rzaq9/rzaq9.pdf?view=kc

V7R3 memo to Users

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_73/rzaq9/rzaq9.pdf?view=kc

I also found the following document handy

“Supported IBM Java Development Kit (JDK) Versions by IBM i Operating
System Version and Release”:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1011999

As a number of JDKs have been retired this is worth spending a little time
on, particularly if you have WebSphere or any other java based stuff.

One thing I did notice - quite a bit of the documentation has moved to
Developerworks which was a tiny bit different from the past APAR approach:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/IBM%20i%20and%20Related%20Software

Make sure you have enough space for the image catalogs (the images in ESS
are now a mess in my opinion but oh well) and the PTF images and don't
forget to assign additional space to the load source.

The pre-upgrade verification tool is nice but I don't rely on it; I do run
it as if/when it passes the tests it makes customers happy plus it helps
get things like an IPL for "apply PTFs permanently" done.

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 2:28 PM, midrange <franz9000@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I need to answer this question next week to management:

Should we upgrade (in 1st qtr 2018) from V7R1 to V7R2 or V7R3 - and what
are
the risks?

This list had a recent few days of discussion about issues with V7R3.

This is a heavily used "medium sized" system

Apps are 50% RPG4/ILE RPG with a lot of embedded sql,

And 50% Win clients and servers using OLE DB to read/write on our system,
supporting web and internal user groups.

A little java creeping in (the Power i is only one major app in a mix of
Unix/Win systems)

About 4Tb virtual optical - every day writing more with old IBM Content
Manager

About 4Tb dds defined files including lots of IFS and 4 ASPs of QDLS
(migration planned but not yet)

This is no longer considered a long term (5 years or more) system to us
(but
who knows).

In previous upgrades it has been the DB2 stuff that gets us - giant complex
sql from the Win group.

Would be nice to avoid the 2 steps, 7.2 and later 7.3

We get a once a quarter window for ptfs and backup.

We do have a development partition so can load release there for extended
testing.

Jim

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