10.0 to 10.2 in place upgrade

[BenLoosli]

I am starting to plan our nest upgrade of Windchill/PDMLink from 10.0 m040 to 10.2 M030 with the latest CPS.

The Upgrade Guide is written as if the upgrade is moving to new hardware. We are not doing this nor do I have any new hardware available for that.

Are there any gotchas in the upgrade process itself that anyone has encountered?

Does the Upgrade Guide and Upgrade Manager work on am in place upgrade?

I am developing my working guide on an OOTB install of 10.0 with minimal data: 1 user, maybe 5 parts checked, no mods to the workflows, oir's, etc.

Once I have the procedure working, I will perform it on my development server which is a clone of my production server taken earlier this month. Depending on how that goes, we will schedule some time to do the production system upgrade early next year.

[BenPerry]

Ben,

Just a curious question - why Windchill 10.2 M030 instead of 11.0 F000?  Don't want to be the first to discover all of the bugs?

[BenLoosli]

Ben,

The timing isn't right for an 11 upgrade. Maybe next year at this time.

11.0 will require more planning and resources than a 10.2 upgrade.

While I have to do an Oracle upgrade for 10.2, we are on 11.2.0.3, I think it will be easier to just do the 11.2.0.4 than going to 12.1.0.2.

I can also leave my users on Creo2 m100, while 11 will require M190 which is not even out yet.

And finally, I NEVER use F000 releases from PTC, too much like beta test software!

Ben

[TomU]

It helps to remember that an upgrade is essentially the following:

1. Do a clean install of the new version.
2. Stop everything and overwrite the new database with a copy of the old one.
3. Run the upgrade manager to update the database to work with the new version.

Somewhere in there, either after step 1 or step 3 you will also need to bring over any customizations you have and also adjust the Windchill properties on the new system to agree with what you had on the old system (assuming they're still relevant and you still want them set that way).

The entire Windchill installation is really nothing more than one big folder (or folders if split among drives) and a database instance.  You can easily test multiple installations and upgrades simply by changing folder names and replacing the database instances.  There is no requirement that the old system be running or accessible to the new system during the upgrade.

[hlinseisen]

I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to do it on one system. A really good thing is to use a vmware machine so that you can easily go back to a snapshot if something during the test upgrade fails.

[MikeLockwood]

The upgrade documentation authors no doubt are trying to do the right thing by attempting to efficiently cover "in-place" and ":new host" upgrades, but I find it hopelessly confusing to separate one from the other.

[BenLoosli]

Looking through PTC documents regarding Oracle databases for 10.2 m030.

PTC Windchill Future Platform Support Summary Rev 5.3 dated 27 Apr 2015, Oracle 11gR2 (11.2.0.3) 64-bit is supported.

PTC Windchill 10.2 M030 Software Matrices Rev 5.2 dated 5 August 2015, Oracle 11gR2 (11.2.0.4 or higher) 64-bit is supported

Both documents say that Oracle 12c R1 (12.1.0.2) 64-bit is supported.

I have 11.2.0.3 running in production with 10.0 m040 now but do not have the CDs for 11.2.0.4 available today. I do have the CDs for 12.1.0.2.

Will 10.2 M030 run on Oracle 11.2.0.3?

[BineshKumar1]

It should be supported we have atleast 2 production installs of 10.2 M030 running 11.2.0.3

Thanks

Binesh Kumar

[BenLoosli]

Binesh,

Thanks for the confirmation that it will work.

Now if PTC could just get there documentation straight!

Ben

[Marco_Tosin]

Pay attention at the end of support for Oracle 11 (11.2.0.3 it's no more supported).

Do you know?Premier Support for Oracle 11.2 will end soon!!! (Upgrade your Database - NOW!)

[BenLoosli]

Not worried about Oracle support with a PTC product on top of the Oracle DB. My support for the system as a whole is from PTC.

One of the reasons for the upgrade from 10.0 to 10.2 is to get our system back to a supported release.

I may still go for 12c with 10.2, haven't made a final decision.

[hlinseisen]

Apart from the discussion i don't understand why PTC always creates a upgradescenary where a second system is needed and it is such a lot of work to do the upgrade.

[BenLoosli]

I agree.

This is more like a new rehost/install than an upgrade, but since I have data in Windchill, PTC considers it an upgrade.

I am going to try to do it on the same hardware because I don't have extra servers lying around and we don't run virtualized in production. IT's call, not mine.

I suppose I could flip my test and production environments or do a rehost after the upgrade back to the 'production' machine set. I don't want my users to have to redefine their connection to Windchill from the client side. It is Server1/Windchill today, I want Seevr1/Windchill after the upgrade.