Evan nailed it.
I've done about 40 this year alone and it's not a difficult thing, except, Java and WAS. You MUST be a Java 7 or 8 (Six will be removed as part of the upgrade) and the WAS server must be at 8.8.5.11 as a minimum. That is what I have found to be the hardest part. I have two customers trying to get the application software upgraded to use WAS 8.5 at this point. A couple of the tool vendors have had issues as well but mostly with older versions they don't really support or sell any longer. No WAS, no problem.
As to the differences between V7r2 and V7R3, they come in the areas of security, mostly. My understanding is there was a debate about if they should do a release change or a TR on the security collection part and ultimately they decided the change was a bit too large for a TR and put out the release instead. Steve Will was quite upfront with that commentary last fall at the COMMON Annual Meeting. So my attitude is don’t' stop at V7R2 get to V7R3 and enjoy the new toys!
--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Evan Harris
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2017 7:52 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: upgrade to v7r2 or v7r3
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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