Has any one done an upgrade of a production environment from release 6CRx to 7, or is 7 not yet ready for production ??

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Hi

We are running Connections 6CR4 at the moment. We have been considering going directly to Connections 7, but I´ve not yet being able to find any "best practises", only the official upgrade documentation, so I'm somewhat unsure as to if any one has yet done a real life upgrade to 7 in a production environment.

If you have, how did you do it ?

As I understand the official documentation the migration path is as follows :

  1. Install a new server setup with same Connections release and fixes as the current environment.
  2. Migrate settings from the existing setup, test you have a running setup
  3. Upgrade to latest CR (in my case 6CR6)
  4. Upgrade to 6.5CR1
  5. Upgrade to 7
  6. And then migrate data.......this point doesn't really contain any details, is that to because the actual data migration process is the same as used when migrating from Connections 5 to 6 ?

Any inputs are very welcome :-)

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I have completed an upgrade but it was an in-place upgrade not a data migration. From everything I have read and watched it seems to me to be pushing much more to in-place rather than full on data migration.

I do however believe if you are going down the data migration root then yes nothing has really changed since version 5 / 6.

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Hi Richard

Thanks for your input.

The in-place upgrade you made was that in a production environment, and did you run into any big issues during the upgrade ?

When I read the Official HCL documentation regarding Migration/Upgrade it seems to me that it's stated several times that the only supported migration strategy is a multi stage process that requires setting up a new environment....... but you point out that from what you have read and watched it seems to be pushing more towards a in-place update rather that a migration (which sounds far better to me as well)....but where did you find that info ?

/Anders

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Hi Anders,

It was indeed a production environment, I have actually completed 3 now 2 customers and our own the only part I haven't tackled yet is the Component Pack Upgrade which I am struggling with mainly due to what I would say is poor documentation on the steps required.

I Have had no issues with completing an in place upgrade to v7 the only thing that HCL seem to recommend is that you are on 6.5CR1 to do this so for one customer I upgraded them from 6 to 6.5 to 6.5CR1 and then to v7 all in place and again I had no issues at all.

I have watched quite a few videos from HCL and other partners on v7 deployment and I got the impression that what they recommend was in place.

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Hi Richard

Great stuff. We might give it a try then with an upgrade to 6.5CR1 and then off to 7.

Thanks for your input :-)

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Our on-prem 6.5CR1 is upgrandet on place to v7. Some new parts does not work yet, fi. "Print to PDF", don't know how to add Microsoft Apps.

In addition it is impossible to get to know what the "Component Pack" would do for Connections, and do I need 24 CPU's to run the content?

Who can answer?

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Hi,

The Print to PDF requires a new database created in the backend so DB2 or SQL etc or it will not work much like the Highlights app did for communities in previous versions. The below is an extract from the Admin pages -

Important: If you have previously installed ICXT then deselect the Feature Foundation check box when upgrading to Connections 7.0 and contact HCL Support to acquire the new ICXT upgrade package. After downloading the ICXT package follow the ICXT installation guidelines.
Attention:
  • The HCL Connections 7.0 database wizard does not create the database for the Community Highlights / Connections Engagement Center (CEC) or Feature Foundation | Export entries to PDF and provides support for Tailored Experience. The Community Highlights database scripts are located in the folder - /Wizards/connections.sql/icec. The Feature Foundation database scripts are located in the folder - /Wizards/connections.sql/ic360. Refer to the procedure in this section to create the databases. You will need to manually run the SQL scripts that are provided with HCL Connections. See Creating databases for more information.
  • Deployments that upgrade from Connections 6.5 CR1 are required to manually run the Homepage database schema for the SharePoint widget. The Homepage schema script for the SharePoint widget is located in the folder: \Wizards\connections.sql\homepage\<backend>\upgrade-60CR4-70.sql.

With regard to the MS Apps these are all part of the component pack so you would need to install that to get access to this part of Connections.

Hope that helps.