Upgrading BMC Digital Workplace Catalog in a server group

If you are running BMC Digital Workplace Catalog on multiple servers in a server group to enable high availability, you can upgrade all servers in the server group to BMC Digital Workplace Catalog 18.02.00 without disrupting your business. The BMC Digital Workplace Catalog nondisruptive upgrade process ensures that you do not lose the data from user requests and running processes.

The following topics describe changes to the functions of a load balancer in server group and how to perform the upgrade. 

Server group environment before the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog upgrade

For BMC Digital Workplace Catalog 3.3.02 and earlier, a typical server group installation is comprised of a primary server that is used for all administrative operations, and a group of secondary servers that process all the end user requests through the BMC Digital Workplace client. All servers in the server group share the database associated with the primary server, as shown in the following illustration.

Label	Description
	The primary server runs BMC Digital Workplace Catalog and is connected to the database. Catalog administrators can only perform administrative operations for managing the catalog on the primary server.
	Each secondary server runs BMC Digital Workplace Catalog and shares the same database as the primary server. BMC Digital Workplace Catalog administrators cannot perform administrative operations to manage the catalog on the secondary servers.
	The load balancer distributes the network traffic across each secondary server to fulfill end user requests submitted through the BMC Digital Workplace client.

Server group environment after the upgrade to BMC Digital Workplace Catalog 18.02.00

After you upgrade BMC Digital Workplace Catalog to 18.02.00 on all the servers, the primary server and all secondary servers still share the same database. However, the upgraded primary server and all secondary servers can process administrative operations as well as end user requests through the BMC Digital Workplace client, as shown in the following illustration.

Label	Description
	The primary server runs BMC Digital Workplace Catalog 18.02.00, and is connected to the database. The primary server is part of the server group.
	Each secondary server runs BMC Digital Workplace Catalog 18.02.00, and shares the same database as the primary server.
	The load balancer shares the network traffic across each of the servers in the server group to fulfill end user requests submitted through the BMC Digital Workplace client.
	The BMC Digital Workplace Catalog upgrade to 18.02.00 enables  BMC Digital Workplace Catalog administrators to perform administrative operations to manage the catalog by logging in to the  BMC Digital Workplace Catalog application by opening the URL of the load balancer. The load balancer can share administration tasks across each of the servers in the server group.

Before you begin

Perform the following tasks to prepare your environment for upgrading BMC Digital Workplace Catalog in a server group.

When you upgrade BMC Digital Workplace Catalog on the primary server, you must modify the server configuration before and after the upgrade, as described in the following sections.

To prepare the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog primary server for the upgrade

Perform the following tasks to remove the primary server from the server group temporarily so that you can upgrade BMC Digital Workplace Catalog.

1. Log in to the primary server with the credentials of the user account that will perform the upgrade.

2. Open the file ar.conf in a text editor. If you installed BMC Digital Workplace Catalog in the default location, then run the following command:

   Example of opening the vi text editor to edit the ar.conf file

   vi /opt/bmc/digitalworkplace/conf/ar.conf

3. Search for the parameter Server-Group-Member, and set the value to F. Only the primary server must be removed from the server group before the upgrade.

4. Restart the primary server for the setting to take effect. For example, if you installed BMC Digital Workplace Catalog in the default location, then run the following commands to stop and restart the server. Replace the username Demo and the password Passw0rd! with your system credentials.

$ /opt/bmc/digitalworkplace/dwpcontroller stop

(... wait for the console to stop displaying messages ...)

$ /opt/bmc/digitalworkplace/dwpcontroller start -u Demo -p Passw0rd!

To upgrade BMC Digital Workplace Catalog on the primary server

Perform the following steps to upgrade the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog primary server with the upgrade options file that you created for the primary server.

1. Extract the files from the upgrade archive package. For instructions, see Extracting the downloaded archive.

2. Create an upgrade options file and upload it to the server, or edit the options.txt file extracted from the upgrade package. For example, save the file as myoptions.txt.

3. Run the upgrade script and specify the options file to use, as in the following example.
   

   Command to run the upgrade script and load an upgrade options file

   ./upgrade-digitalworkplace.sh -o myoptions.txt

4. After you read and accept the End User License Agreement (EULA), the upgrade process begins. The upgrade should take between one and two hours. The system will report if the upgrade succeeds or fails. If the upgrade fails, review the error message and the log files to troubleshoot the problem.

To reset the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog primary server to be part of the server group

1. Log in to the primary server with the credentials of the user account that performed the upgrade.

2. Open the file ar.conf in a text editor. If you installed BMC Digital Workplace Catalog the default location, then you could run the following command.

   Example of opening the vi text editor to edit the ar.conf file

   vi /opt/bmc/digitalworkplace/conf/ar.conf

3. Search for the parameter Server-Group-Member, and set the value back to T.

4. Restart the primary server for the settings to take effect. For example, if you installed BMC Digital Workplace Catalog in the default location, then run the following commands to stop and restart the server. Replace the username Demo and the password Passw0rd! with your system credentials.

   Note

   As of BMC Digital Workplace Catalog 3.3.02, run the dwpcontroller command to stop and start the server.

   Example of stopping and restarting the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog 3.3.02 server

   $ /opt/bmc/digitalworkplace/dwpcontroller stop
   
   (... wait for the console to stop displaying messages ...)
   
   $ /opt/bmc/digitalworkplace/dwpcontroller start -u Demo -p Passw0rd!

To upgrade each of the BMC Digital Workplace Catalog secondary servers in the server group

You do not need to modify the configuration of the secondary servers. Proceed to upgrade BMC Digital Workplace Catalog on each of the secondary servers one after another. The BMC Digital Workplace Catalog server group will still process end user requests through the BMC Digital Workplace client by reading the cached data on the secondary servers that have not yet been upgraded.

1. Extract the files from the upgrade archive package. For instructions, see Extracting the downloaded archive.

2. Create an upgrade options file and upload it to the server, or edit the options.txt file extracted from the upgrade package. For example, save the file as myoptions.txt.

3. Run the upgrade script and specify the options file to use, as in the following example.
   

   Command to run the upgrade script and load an upgrade options file

   ./upgrade-digitalworkplace.sh -o myoptions.txt

4. After you read and accept the End User License Agreement (EULA), the upgrade process begins. The upgrade should take between one and two hours. The system will report if the upgrade succeeds or fails. If the upgrade fails, review the error message and the log files to troubleshoot the problem.