Migrating from 5.5 to 6.0 General Questions
Hi, I have read through the deployment guide to plan for our upcoming 5.5 to 6.0 migration. I have a few questions.
1) Collector/Agent upgrades: As I understand the process, once the collectors are upgraded the bootstrap agents will auto upgrade but will not report as version 6.0 until the agents are restarted. The doc goes on to state that agents in an app must be of the same version or there will be broken purepaths. Does this mean that all jvms in an app must be restarted at the same time?
2) Deactivating License Key: We plan to do our upgrade during the off hours. In order to get an updated 6.0 license we must deactivate our current license. How can this be achieved during the off hours outage. IE Compuware not available to generate license key.
OK. Can I just make sure about something. When I upgrade an agent from 5.5 to 6.0 by restarting them, would it also update the bootstrap agent? Thus, do I have to re-install the v6.0 agent anyway to update the bootstrap part (so not the agent that is subsequently loaded) or will the bootstrap be updated and all the functionality of being able to connect to collector groups etc be in there? Will this work the same for all agent types?
Thanks
And one more question. Users currently connect to the qa and prod dt servers using the same local client. Once qa is upgraded, the client is 6.0. Must all local clients be upgraded to 6.0 and if so, can they still connect to the current 5.5 prod server. Or, is two local clients installations required, or prod webstart.
I would use webstart clients for this use case. because otherwise you might run into problems somewhere.
thanks Christian. Is ok to run the 5.5 agent on a 6.0 collector. The issue for us is that we have 15 application in 11 system profiles. Each JVM is restarted in a rolling method, a few each week. In some cases it could take a month for all of the agents in an application to restart and get the upgrade. It is acceptable to run in this manner?
sure, 5.5 agents can connect and talk to 6.0 collectors/servers! so it's absolutely possible to restart them step by step.
starting with 6.0 it's also possible to have a controlled rollout by selecting the agents that should be upgraded in the dynaTrace Client. so backwards compatibility is an absolute must have for the agents!
just to avoid any potential misunderstanding about the bootstrap:
- when you upgrade the collector, all the agents keep running in their previous version (5.5) in your applications at first
- as soon as your applications are restarted (not earlier!), the bootstrap agent (still version 5.5) will take care to inject the new agent (version 6.0)
best,
Christian
Thank you Guenter.
This answers my questions.
Hi!
Q: As I understand the process, once the collectors are upgraded the bootstrap agents will auto upgrade but will not report as version 6.0 until the agents are restarted.
A: Correct. The new Agent will be injected into your app by the old bootstrap part. The Agent Overview will report a Bootstrap Version 5.5... and Agent Version 6.0.0.6738.
Q: The doc goes on to state that agents in an app must be of the same version or there will be broken purepaths.
A: Are you sure you read the right migration guide? This is only the case when you upgrade from 4.2!
Q: Does this mean that all jvms in an app must be restarted at the same time?
A: Not necessarily, but you should plan your upgrade around a maintenance window where you are able to restart your apps in close temporal fashion.
Q: In order to get an updated 6.0 license we must deactivate our current license. How can this be achieved during the off hours outage.
A: Even with the most simple upgrade alternative (which I recommend) you could deactivate your old license and upgrade it on eServices during daytime or on a Friday and run the dynaTrace Server on the three day grace period until you upgrade during off hours.
Hope this helps!
G.
Thanks for the feedback Joel.
Just to be clear, all jvms will be upgraded at the same time, but the restart will be rolling over a week or so. I think the real question is the version effective immediately following the upgrade of the agent (bootstrap) or after the jvm is restarted.
Glad to hear from you
Hey Ken,
1) During the upgrade, JVMs don't have to be installed at the exact same time, but for purepaths that begin before all tiers of the purepath are on the same version, you will likely have broken purepaths.
2) I suggest going to https://eservices.compuwareapm.com/. At this website you can access all your company's license files, and manage the upgrade of the license files yourself. Alternatively, you can upgrade the license files straight from the license tab in the dT client, as long as your credentials on the APM community allow you access to your license files. If you need access, I'd encourage you to e-mail license_support@compuware.com to get your credentials added.
Hope all is well!
Regards,
JB
