Preparing for upgrade
To avoid data loss (for example, in the reports data warehouse) and upgrade failure, perform the following tasks before upgrading:
- Verifying supported upgrade paths
- Assigning roles to users
- Verifying ETL
- Verifying versions
- Backing up databases and Inventory templates
- Exporting and backing up custom reports
- Backing up your files
- Where to go from here
- Related topic
Verifying supported upgrade paths
Ensure that you are upgrading BMC Decision Support for Server Automation from one of the versions that are supported for upgrade. For supported versions, see Supported-upgrade-paths.
Assigning roles to users
(For SQL Server only) Ensure that you have roles assigned to various database users as follows:
User | Role |
|---|---|
| dbcreator |
Verifying ETL
Use the BMC Decision Support for Server Automation Console to ensure that all extract, transform, and load (ETL) runs have completed and that ETL is not running. For more information, see Viewing-the-ETL-status.
Verifying versions
Ensure that you have installed version 8.2 or later of BMC Server Automation Network Shell.
Verify that you are upgrading from a supported version.
Backing up databases and Inventory templates
Back up the following databases:
- Reports data warehouse
- Portal content store database
- ETL (ODI) master and ETL (ODI) work repository databases
Also back up the Inventory templates.
Exporting and backing up custom reports
You can export custom reports by using the export utility available in Content Administration in IBM Cognos Administration (see IBM Cognos Administration and Security Guide at PDFs).
All reports are exported to a zip file that is located on the reports server in the BDSSAInstallationDirectory/portal/deployments directory. When the report export is complete, ensure that you back up the export file to another known location.
Backing up your files
If you customized files (for example, if you manually edited any portal configuration files), these changes are not maintained when you upgrade the product. You must reapply those changes. Before upgrading the product, back up your files so that you can use them to restore your customizations.
You can replace some of the new files with your original customized files after the upgrade, but not all of them. Some files are modified during the upgrade and you cannot replace them with your older customized files. Instead, you must modify the new files after the upgrade. Record the directory path of the customized files so that you can copy them to the correct location after the upgrade or easily locate the new files that you need to customize.
Back up the following files:
- system.xml files in the BDSSAInstallationDirectory/portal/templates/ps or the BDSSAInstallationDirectory/portal/templates/ps/qs directory. After upgrade, you can replace this file with the back up copy.
- coglocale.xml in the BDSSAInstallationDirectory/portal/configuration directory. After upgrade, you can replace this file with the back up copy.
- server.xml in the BDSSAInstallationDirectory/portal/tomcat4.1.27/conf or BDSSAInstallationDirectory/portal/tomcat/conf directory. After upgrade, you can replace this file with the back up copy.
- blappserv_login.conf and blappserv_krb5.conf in the BDSSAInstallationDirectory/br directory. After upgrade, you can replace this file with the back up copy.
- system.xml file in the BDSSAInstallationDirectory/portal/templates/ps/portal directory. After upgrade, you cannot replace this file with the back up copy. You must reapply your changes to the new file.
If you exported any report content, back up these files so that you can import the content from the files after the upgrade. For more details about exporting and importing, see Importing-and-exporting-report-definition-content-and-package.
Where to go from here
Related topic