Planning an upgrade

Before you start an upgrade, review this planning guide to select the appropriate upgrade method and to understand the upgrade process.

Choosing an upgrade path

Your current version of the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite platform components and applications determines the upgrade path that you choose. Review the planning decisions and related information in the table to plan your upgrade path.

Planning decision	Details
From which versions can I upgrade?	You can upgrade directly to BMC Remedy ITSM Suite 18.08 from BMC Remedy ITSM 7.6.04 or a later version. Remedy Platform Upgrade: Remedy Applications Upgrade:
How do I upgrade from a version earlier than 7.6.04?	If you are upgrading from a version earlier than BMC Remedy ITSM 7.6.04, you must first upgrade to BMC Remedy ITSM 8.1.02. For instructions, see Upgrading in the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite 8.1 Deployment documentation. Best practice BMC recommends that you sign up for the AMIGO program to discuss options for upgrading from a version earlier than 7.6.04. For more information, see Upgrade planning assistance.
What is the difference between upgrading from a version earlier than 7.6.04 and from version 7.6.04 or later?	In BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.04, the overlays feature was introduced to preserve application customizations during the upgrade process. During the upgrade, the upgrade installers ignore application overlays and change only the objects that were originally installed with the application or server. After the upgrade, the application or server continues to use the overlays instead of the origin objects for run-time operations so that your customizations are preserved. If you are upgrading from a release that was customized without overlays, you will need to create overlays for those existing application customizations before you upgrade. This process is part of the 8.1.02 upgrade. For details about the process, see Creating overlays in the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite 8.1 Deployment documentation. Learn more about overlays Recommended webinar: Connect with Remedy - Overlays and Customizations FAQ: https://communities.bmc.com/docs/DOC-27300
How do I upgrade from version 7.6.04 or later?	The Best Practice Customization mode of BMC Remedy Developer Studio ensures that all application object customizations are saved as overlays when you upgrade. If you have already created overlays, you can directly upgrade each component to the latest version. In BMC Remedy AR system version 8.1, granular overlays were introduced to minimize the amount of reconciliation you need to perform following an upgrade or patch. Granular overlays allow you to modify only some aspects of an object and inherit other aspects from the origin object. When you upgrade to 9.1, you might need to adjust your overlays prior to installing BMC Remedy ITSM and reconciling. For details, see Adjusting customizations when upgrading. Learn more about granular overlays Recommended video: Granular overlays Recommended Communities blog: Trending in Support: Using granular overlays to manage customizations
What is the BMC Remedy ITSM CI Attribute change, and why do I need to make these changes when I upgrade?	Earlier versions of BMC Remedy ITSM extended the BMC Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB) data model by adding a number of ITSM-specific attributes to CI classes. Starting in BMC Remedy ITSM version 8.0, these attributes are now stored in the ITSM Foundation instead of the BMC Atrium CMDB. During the upgrade, the installer will copy the ITSM attributes from the CMDB to the ITSM Foundation and will put a workflow in place to keep the attributes up to date in both locations. For more information, see Performing the BMC Remedy ITSM upgrade. Learn more about the ITSM CI Attribute change Recommended webinar: Connect with Remedy - Benefits of change in ITSM Applications CI Attributes FAQ: https://communities.bmc.com/docs/DOC-27671

Determining the upgrade scope

Depending on your business needs, you can incrementally upgrade your Remedy system. Review the planning decisions and related information in the table to plan the upgrade scope and decide whether to deploy new components.

Planning decision	Details
Which versions of the platform and applications are supported together?	You must review the compatible BMC product versions in the compatibility matrix to understand which supported versions of the BMC Remedy ITSM applications are supported with the platform components. The Remedy platform offers backward compatibility with older versions of Remedy applications. This allows you to upgrade the platform without having to upgrade your applications. Customers with BMC Remedy AR platform as their core stack and custom applications running on top of the platform can just upgrade the platform. Important You must ensure that all the application components are at the same version. For example, if you upgrade BMC Remedy ITSM to 18.08 with Process Designer version 9.1, it is necessary to upgrade BMC Service Request Management to version 18.08. You should also keep BMC Remedy Mid Tier, AR Server and Smart Reporting on the same version. For BMC Remedy with Smart IT, see the System requirements for Smart IT in the BMC Remedy with Smart IT documentation. For BMC Digital Workplace, see Compatibility matrix in the BMC Digital Workplace documentation.
Can I upgrade just the platform components?	Yes. You can upgrade the platform components (BMC Remedy AR System and BMC Atrium Core) separately from any applications on the system. You must upgrade the AR System server and the Atrium Configuration Management Database (CMDB) together, and they must be at the same version. You can perform an in-place upgrade the platform components with zero downtime if they are deployed in a server group environment. You must upgrade BMC Remedy Mid Tier to 18.08 or 18.05 at the same time or before upgrading the AR System server and the Atrium Core CMDB. AR System Server 18.05 introduces new dynamic data menus that do not work if a lower version of Mid Tier is used against AR System Server 18.05 or 18.08
Can I upgrade just the applications?	No. You must upgrade the platform before you can upgrade the applications. The applications must be at the same version as the platform (or the platform can be at a later version than the applications). However, you can upgrade the applications during a different upgrade period. For example, you might upgrade the platform one month or one week prior to the applications.
What BMC integrations do I need to upgrade?	Review the compatibility matrix to check whether the version of your BMC integrations are supported with this version of the Remedy platform. Not all BMC products are listed in the compatibility matrix. In this case, check the system requirements or documentation for the integration, such as the following products: BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management BMC Service Resolution
When should I upgrade BMC Remedy with Smart IT or BMC Digital Workplace?	The upgrade process is separate for BMC Remedy with Smart IT or BMC Digital Workplace. If you are using BMC Digital Workplace and/or BMC Remedy with Smart IT, it is recommended that you upgrade: BMC Digital Workplace before you upgrade Remedy ITSM Suite. Smart IT after you upgrade Remedy ITSM Suite. Note that if ITSM is upgraded to version 18.05, Smart IT must also be upgraded to 18.05, because Smart IT 2.0 and earlier will not work with ITSM 18.05. The upgrade sequence is as follows: Upgrade BMC Digital Workplace Upgrade Remedy ITSM Suite Upgrade Remedy with Smart IT For more information, see Upgrading BMC Digital Workplace in the Digital Workplace documentation and Upgrading Smart IT in the Smart IT documentation.
Do I need to migrate to BMC Remedy Single Sign-On from BMC Atrium Single Sign-On?	BMC Atrium Single Sign-On is not supported for BMC Remedy Action Request System 9.1.00 and later versions. BMC supports only BMC Remedy Single Sign-On with BMC Remedy Action Request System 9.1.00 and later versions. If you have already migrated to BMC Remedy Single Sign-On, you can upgrade to the current version, which is separate from the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite upgrade. For information about how to install or upgrade, see the documentation for BMC Remedy Single Sign-On .

Choosing the upgrade method

There are two methods for upgrading the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite: staged upgrade or in-place upgrade. Depending on the complexity of your environment and your outage window, choose a method that suites your requirements. Review the planning decisions and related information in the table to select an upgrade method.

Planning decision

Details

What is an in-place upgrade?

An in-place upgrade encompasses the following:

You leverage your existing hardware and Remedy environments (development, QA, and production).
While upgrading your development system, you test the upgrade of the platform components and applications and reconcile application customizations (overlays).
While upgrading your QA system, you test the upgrade of the platform components and applications with production data and fully test the upgraded environment.

Best practice

BMC highly recommends that you conduct full validation and performance testing in the QA environment to minimize the amount of time required for testing during the production upgrade.
In your current production environment, you perform the final upgrade and import your reconciled application customizations.

What is a staged upgrade?

A staged upgrade encompasses the following:

You set up staging servers that are clones of your current Remedy environments. If you need to upgrade your hardware or database, you set up new systems.
While upgrading your development system, you test the upgrade of the platform components and applications and reconcile application customizations (overlays).
While upgrading your QA system, you test the upgrade of the platform components and applications with production data and fully test the upgraded environment.

Best practice

BMC highly recommends that you conduct full validation and performance testing in the QA environment to minimize the amount of time required for testing during the production upgrade. Reducing test time during the production phase will also reduce the amount of delta data that you need to migrate.
In the production staging environment, you perform the final upgrade, import your reconciled application customizations, and migrate the delta data by using the Delta Data Migration tool. (Delta data refers to any data changes that occur on the production server during the upgrade of the staging server.)
Your current production environment is preserved and remains available to users while you perform the upgrade process.

Do I need to schedule downtime for the upgrade?

You can perform an in-place upgrade of the Remedy platform (BMC Remedy AR System and BMC Atrium Core) with no downtime. Production work can continue while the upgrade processes in the background. However, there is always a possibility of some reduction in throughput. An additional load is generated in parallel to the live system; therefore, BMC recommends that you perform the upgrade during off-peak hours. To prepare for the zero-downtime upgrade of the platform components, see Preparing for zero-downtime upgrade of the platform.
You must schedule downtime for the application upgrade.
When you perform zero-downtime upgrade in a non-server group environment, the installer automatically adds all the upgraded servers to the server group. If there are servers which are not upgraded to 9.1.04 but are using the 9.1.04 database, those servers are not added to the server group.

Where are the steps involved in an upgrade?

BMC recommends that you follow the steps in one of these processes to perform the upgrade:

What data can be migrated with the Delta Data Migration tool?

List of products for which delta data can be migrated

Product	Earliest supported version from which you can migrate data
BMC Remedy AR System	7.0.1
BMC Atrium Core	2.0.1
BMC Atrium Integrator	8.0.00
BMC Remedy ITSM applications	7.0.02
BMC Service Request Management	2.2
BMC Service Level Management	7.1
BMC Remedy Knowledge Management	7.6.03
BMC Service Impact Manager	7.1
Integration for BMC Remedy Service Desk	7.1
BMC Process Designer	8.3.03
BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management	8.5

How do I set up a staging environment?

For details, see Setting up systems for a staged upgrade

Planning the upgrade environment

When you upgrade to a new version, you might need to provision for newer hardware to support your deployment and update third-party software. Review the planning decisions and related information to plan the upgraded environment.

Planning decision	Details
What are the hardware requirements?	Important You must review the recommended Hardware requirements for your deployment to determine whether you need to upgrade the hardware, both primary servers and secondary servers in a server group. Also review the following sections in the documentation: BMC Remedy Migrator memory usage and disk space requirements BMC Remedy Single Sign-On system requirements
What is the recommended sizing guideline?	BMC publishes guidelines for hardware sizing based on a series of enterprise-scale tests to demonstrate the scalability and performance of the platform and the applications. Best practice BMC recommends that you adequately estimate and size your environment for continued scalability and performance. The medium-size deployment model specified in the hardware requirements is suited for the majority of our customers. If you need additional capacity, BMC recommends that you add an additional medium-size server to a server group. The product installers automatically run the preupgrade checks and configuration checks based on BMC's medium size best-practice sizing recommendations.
Will I need additional hardware?	If you decide to perform a staged upgrade, you will need additional hardware for the development, QA, and production staging servers. To understand staging server implementation, see Setting up a staged upgrade server.
What are the software requirements?	Important You must review the compatibility matrix to ensure the current systems contain the supported third-party software, supported databases, and supported operating systems. Also review the following sections in the documentation: Software dependencies for BMC Remedy AR system Adobe Flash Player requirement Additional BMC Atrium Core requirements For network port requirements, see Understanding port numbers Overview of the portmapper service
Which databases are supported?	For database support, see the database requirements in the compatibility matrix and in the Hardware requirements. Also review Unicode support.

Planning pre-upgrade activities

Review the planning decisions and related information to plan your pre-upgrade activities.

Planning decision

Details

What preparations do I need to make before I begin?

The Preparing section describes general preparation tasks, such as downloading the installation files.

For each component, there are also pre-upgrade steps that you need to follow.

Where should I document my installation details?

Before you start installing or upgrading products, you might want to first gather your responses to the installer prompts for each product in the installation spreadsheet. The installation spreadsheet provides guidance on what needs to be entered for an upgrade and helps you collect these parameter values to reduce errors during the upgrade process.

For more information, see Completing the installation spreadsheet.

What should I test during the upgrade?

See Performing upgrade testing.

Best practice

To minimize testing in the final phase of upgrade, BMC recommends that perform extensive testing in your QA environment. To do so requires the QA environment to closely match the capabilities and the load on the current production environment.

Are there any tools that I will need to perform the upgrade?

Yes.

For details, see Installing upgrade utilities.

Where can I find information about issues I need to be aware of?

For the latest patch information or bulletins, see Release notes and notices. For details about known issues in this release, see:

Upgrade planning assistance

The following resources are available to help you plan your upgrade.

AMIGO program

The BMC Assisted MIGration Offering (AMIGO) program is designed to assist customers with the planning of product upgrades to a newer version (“Success through proper planning"). This program is offered to BMC customers currently subscribed to BMC Support.

BMC will provide collateral containing upgrade best practices compiled by experts in BMC Support and in R&D. You can leverage this information to create your upgrade plan. Upgrade experts in BMC Support will review your plan and offer advice to help ensure your success.

For more information on Amigo program, watch the following video:

https://youtu.be/q5P5ztf7aMQ

To learn more about the AMIGO program, visit the AMIGO Program Overview Open link on the Support page.

Read about the AMIGO program at https://communities.bmc.com/docs/DOC-28417.

Sample upgrade project plans

To help you get started with the planning process, the attached Microsoft Project 2013 plans provide sample upgrade tasks based on the in-place or staged upgrade methods.

	Microsoft Project .mpp file	Adobe Acrobat .pdf file
In-place upgrade to 18.08 from 18.05	Sample In-place ITSM Suite 1808 from 1805 Upgrade Plan.mpp	Sample In-place ITSM Suite 1808 from 1805 Upgrade Plan.pdf
Staged upgrade to 18.08 from 18.05	Sample Staged ITSM Suite 1808 from 1805 Upgrade Plan.mpp	Sample Staged ITSM Suite 1808 from 1805 Upgrade Plan.pdf
In-place upgrade to 18.08 from 9.1	Sample In-place ITSM Suite 1808 from 91 Upgrade Plan.mpp	Sample In-place ITSM Suite 1808 from 91 Upgrade Plan.pdf
Staged upgrade to 18.08 from 9.1	Sample Staged ITSM Suite 1808 from 91 Upgrade Plan.mpp	Sample Staged ITSM Suite 1808 from 91 Upgrade Plan.pdf

Upgrade webinar

Watch the Remedy 9 Upgrade Best Practices video about upgrade best practices and some of the major architectural changes that will help you understand the upgrade process.

Frequently asked questions about upgrading

Review the webinar FAQ for additional details and clarifications about upgrade compatibility: https://communities.bmc.com/docs/DOC-4118

Where to go from here

Next step	After you have selected the upgrade method, created a plan, and acquired any necessary hardware, perform the tasks in Preparing.