Windchill 11.1 upgrade

[BenLoosli]

After doing a lot of research into the Upgrade process, even more confusing than the Rehost process, I have identified my plan forward and would like some others to comment if this is doable.

We are on Windchill 11.0 M030 CPS16 with Oracle 12Cr1 both on Windows 2012R1 Servers.

Upgrade will be to Windchill 11.1 M020 CPS20 with Oracle 12Cr2 both on Windows 2012R1 Servers.

I am doing a test upgrade on a virtual clone of the production systems.

The data vaults will remain on the Windchill server.

My plan is as follows:

1) Create a backup of the LDAP

2) Create a backup of the Oracle DB

3) Shutdown Windchill and WindchillDS

4) Shutdown Oracle

5) Remove the Windows services that start Windchill, HTTP and DS

6) Rename the Windchill top folder

7) rename the  Vaults folder for the OOTB test

😎 Install Oracle 12Cr2

9) Install Windchill 11.1 M020 CPS20 from the downloaded files

10) Test the OOTB 11.1 system

11) Dump the Oracle DB user

12) Import the Oracle DB

13) Rename the vaults folder

14) Connect the vaults to Windchill

15) Run the UgradeManager

16) add any post upgrade items needed like rbinfo files for states

I think that should work. Anything missing that anyone can see?

The 11.1M020 is only needed until 12.1 is released as PTC has said that 12,0 is not a long term solution. Also 11.2 has an end-of-support before 11.1 M020.

This will allow us to get to Creo 7 or 8 from Creo 4.

[Florent]

Hi Ben,

you'll have to copy over and compile the wtCustom folder prior the upgradeManager.

You may also take a look at the site.xconf to transfer some custom settings (like change transitions).

That been said, the 12.0.2.0 is a long term release.

[BenLoosli]

Yes, I do have some site.xconfig settings to transfer over. No customization, except the rbinfo files.

PTC's numbering is still confusing! I wasn't sure if the long term release of Windchill 12 would be 12.0.2 or 12.1.

[Florent]

Well, I edited my first post to remove something that was actually true... (got confused with the dates), but 11.1 end of life is scheduled for January 2022, soon enough to consider 12.0.2.x

You can refer to the PTC Windchill Calendar

[shussaini]

This is the new naming convention for the releases. Hope this helps.

Refer CS279884 for more details.

[RandyJones]

Since you are upgrading Oracle I would go to 19c since that is supported by 11.1 M020, and 12.0.x.

Oracle 12Cr2 is deprecated for 12.0.0 and NOT supported for 12.0.1 and 12.0.2 which means it will not be supported for 12.1

[BenLoosli]

Oracle 19c is not supported on Windows 2012.

What I did not say was that after I get to Windchill11.1 I will be rehosting the systems to Windows 2016.

At that point I will do an Oracle upgrade to 19c.

Is there anything needed to do the Oracle upgrade? Does a expdp of the 12c DB and then an import to the 19c DB work or do I need to run the Oracle DBUA?

[RandyJones]

---

@BenLoosli wrote:

Oracle 19c is not supported on Windows 2012.

Well that sucks. 

What I did not say was that after I get to Windchill11.1 I will be rehosting the systems to Windows 2016.

At that point I will do an Oracle upgrade to 19c.

Is there anything needed to do the Oracle upgrade? Does a expdp of the 12c DB and then an import to the 19c DB work or do I need to run the Oracle DBUA?

---

I don't know the particulars of what expdp > import do. We never use that here. I do know that if you upgrade an existing Oracle install there are 2 items that get upgraded:

• The database software
• The actual database tables
  
  • So if the import doesn't upgrade the tables then that will need to be done

Since we are using RHEL and zfs we always use snapshots and clones to "recreate" the entire Oracle db install + db tables and then upgrade all of that.

[BenLoosli]

Do you run an Oracle upgrade utility, DBUA or some other, or does the UpgradeManager take care of everything?

[RandyJones]

We have it all scripted with scripts we have developed over the years starting with:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/upgrd/

and other googled questions.

According to this the export/import method will upgrade the tables

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/upgrd/choose-an-upgrade-method-for-oracle-database.html#GUID-9774D863-E62C-4B49-9696-B5D244EF2826

From 

[BenLoosli]

My mistake on the Windows 2012R2 and Oracle 19c support, it is supported and I have requested a copy of the files from our corporate database admins.

[RandyJones]

You should definitely get them to help if possible.

[shussaini]

The oracle data pump utility works for this DB version upgrade. Only thing was import had to be done twice. First with exclude Index  (this will create the indexes PK based on the constraints). Then a second import with same exact dump but with include=index.

Hope this helps

[BenLoosli]

I only did a single import of the DB. I did run a gather statistics command after the import. It has been running fine for 3 weeks now.

[rleir]

Be careful about the Oracle versions when you go to WC 12.n.  You may have legacy Cognos reports which will not work if you go to the latest Oracle. To keep those reports working you need Oracle n.m.3 not n.m.10 (sorry about the partial version numbers, but you will want to look that up yourself anyhow). And of course you need plans for the eventual demise of Cognos reports.

[BenLoosli]

Not an issue as we don't use Cognos reports.

[Ajit_Kulkarni]

I would recommend to setup additional server for new environment. By this your are making sure that your old system is intact.

You also need to take care of many remaining stuffs

• Customization (if any)
• Domain name to access the server (if you plan another server)
• HTTPS setup and certificates 
• Upgrading CAD software for users immediately after upgrade
• Most important - running Windu on both source machine and resolve issue. On target server after upgrade and resolve issue. 
• Setting up CAD workers.
• Testing  

Also consider upgrading to 12. Even 12.1. 

[BenLoosli]

This is being done on a rehosted virtual test environment to get the procedure down.

I will then wipe the test system, clone the virtual production system and rerun the rehost/upgrade procedure again and then do a rehost to Windows 2016. I don't think 11.1 is supported on Windows 2019, so that will be the rehost once I am running Windchill 12.

Thanks, all good points to remember and consider.

[d_graham]

Ben,

I didn’t see this on your list but did you first run WinDU (and if necessary WinRu) on the source Windchill system?

And did you run WinDU with the latest patch? This of course will run the most up-to-date checks.

Also, you might need to merge the ldif from source Windchill DS with target’s OOTB Windchill DS ldif?

So, export ldif from source. Export ldif from target (just to keep a backup copy). Import source ldif using append option. Something like.

Also, are you upgrading your Publisher to latest Creo View Adapter?

David

[BenLoosli]

I have run WInDU and have no errors or potential errors. I am stuck running WIndchill 11.0 M30 CPS16 and cannot apply any later CPS releases on this system. My other Windchill 11.0 M030 systems are at CPS06 and CPS08 with no plans to update them before the upgrade to 11.1 M020.

I always do an append when I import the LDIF into an existing LDAP. 

I will be upgrading the CreoView Publisher Adapter to 6, I think, maybe 7. We  will be upgrading Creo to 7 but may go with 8.

We have purchased ThingWorx Navigate but have to get to Windchill 11.1 before we can implement that.

Our plan is to be on 11.1 for a short time only as we want to get to a long term release of 12/12.1 whatever is out early next year. 

[BenLoosli]

let me add a new twist. Instead of using Windows Server 2012R2 for the Windchill 11.1 systems, IT wants me to use Windows 2016. Does that present any additional issues. They would also like me to use Windows 2019 when we do the second upgrade to Windchill 12.X.

[ScottMorris]

We did a Windows Server upgrade in-place from 2021 to 2016 to support our Windchill upgrade and if there was anything I could redo, that would be it. After our upgrade in-place, everything worked, but Windows Server 2016 has always been a bit quirky. As we plan for our Windchill 12 upgrade, definitely planning on starting on a fresh VM with a new installation of Windows Server 2019.

[TomU]

We've also gone from 2012R2 to 2016 for production and now to 2019 for test.  No issues whatsoever.  I would second starting with clean, fresh O.S. installations vs. trying to upgrade them.

Modifying the 'wt.server.codebase' address to use a 'friendly name' for your Windchill server instead of it's actual hostname also makes life a lot simpler.  You can install Windchill on a different (newer) server and by updating the friendly name's address in DNS everyone will automatically talk to the new server.  No playing games trying to keep the hostnames the same between the old server and the new one.  (See CS178849.)

[BenLoosli]

We are using new virtual machines when we go to Windows 2016 and then new virtual machines when we go to 2019.

IT doesn't like the number of virtual machines I have (4 production 2012, 4 for 11.1 production 2016, 6 test 2012) but I tell them the 2012 machines will all go away when the 2016 go live.

[joe_morton]

This is probably more of a post-upgrade activity, but remember that 11.1 enforces licenses. You'll want to make sure you have all your users assigned to the right licenses, or at least queued up so you can easily go through and assign them all. 

[ahanson]

Prior to step 15, you'll need to take the backup you took of your LDAP (DS) server, append the 11.1 OOTB DS server onto it, then re-import it.

The commands are detailed in page 47 of the Upgrade Guide 

Interesting you mentioned that 12.0 isn't a long term solution.  Looking at the Product Release Calendar it says 12.0.2.0 is supported June 2025.  We've just started reviewing the 12 upgrade process, and I'd like to if there are any roadblocks to watch out for.

[BenLoosli · Accepted solution]

Let ne say thanks to all of the replies that helped me with things to look for.

Windchill 11.1 M020 CPS20 went live on Friday October 8 on new servers and has been functioning great since then.

Took me a little longer to get CreoView publishing to work, but that is up and  running now.

The overall upgrade went smoother than I expected from prior upgrade experiences.

I did create a 30+page document of the detailed steps needed for the upgrade. It will come in handy as I have 2 more WIndchill systems to upgrade soon.