Invitation to Open Mic: Notes Upgrade Deployments and Best Practices

HCL Domino Domino Forum
1

IBM is hosting an Open Mic conference call with Lotus Development and Support Engineering to discuss “Notes upgrade deployments and best practices”.

The Open Mic call will be held on Thursday, July 15. The call will take place at 10:00 AM US Eastern Time and will last for 1 hour. Please dial into the call 5 minutes before the scheduled start. This conference call is designed to be an open question & answer format, so bring your questions. Please refer to the Open Mic technote #1433038 for more details.

Please post any advanced questions within the ND8.5 forum by creating a response to this document.

2

Subject: Notes/Design/Admin 6.5.4 upgrade

Hi,

I need to upgrade 6.5.4 full client (includes notes/designer/admin part: c80v2na.exe) to 8.5.1 Basic release (part: lotus_notes851_basic_win_CZ5S1EN.exe) but it always fails. Eclipse version (Standard) is not used, nor can I install Standard and use it as Basic.

I also need to upgrade 6.5.4 Notes client only(part: c80v0na.exe) to 8.5.1 Basic release (part: lotus_notes851_basic_win_CZ5S1EN.exe) but have not tried it. Can you please let me know if that works successfully and/or any considerations?

OS = XP Pro

Thanks for your help

3

Subject: Read this…

Read this post from Jeff which explains how to install two packages at once.

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/installblog.nsf/dx/chained-installs

4

Subject: Smart Upgrade from 8.0.2 to 8.5.1FP2 in one step

We are upgrading users from 8.0.2 FP1 to 8.5.1 FP2. This requires 2 install kits: 8.5.1 and FP2. We generally never upgrade the masses of users to the initial major release (and certainly never finish the upgrades before the next FP is out). Since full install kits are no longer made that include the incrementals, I need a way of pushing out 2 kits (like 8.5.1 and FP2) in 1 smart upgrade process.

5

Subject: re: Smart Upgrade Kits

We are in the same boat (same question), is there a one Smart Upgrade Kit from 7.0.x to 8.5.1 FP2? If not how do we handle pushing 8.5.1 and then the Fix Pack using Smart Upgrade db. thanx.

6

Subject: re: Smart Upgrade Kits

There is not technically one kit that upgrades from 7.0.x to 8.0.x FPx or 8.5.x FPx, but what you can do is use the chaining of Smart Upgrade kits to accomplish this. What you will have is:

1 Kit going from 7 to 8, example:

 Release 7.0.3 ---> Release 8.5.1

Then 1 kit going from 8.5.1 to 8.5.1 FP3

 Release 8.5.1 ---> Release 8.5.1 FP3

NOTE In this situation, BOTH kits will need to have “basic” set for the “source configuration”. This is because the 7.0.x client is considered “basic”, and although you will be going from 7.0.x (basic) to 8.5.1 (standard) to 8.5.1 FP3 (standard), the 7.0.x client sees the upgrade path all at once based on its current configuration.

Once these kits are configured correctly, if the client is either prompted or manually selects Tools - Smart Upgrade from the File menu, the prompt will show that the upgrade can go to 8.5.1 FP3. The client will then download 8.5.1 and 8.5.1 FP3, shut down, install them in order, and, if you have specified, restart after the upgrade has completed.

One known issue with prompting in this situation: When admins usually set this up, they pair it with a Desktop Settings document which lists Release 8.5.1 FP3 as the deploy version. In situations where you are “chaining” the smart upgrades, the user will not be automatically prompted to upgrade, but must go to Tools - Smart upgrade manually. This issue is fixed in 8.5.2, and a workaround is to leave the Deploy Version field blank in the desktop policy document.

If this is attempted and seems to be working contrary to design, please open a ticket with support for investigation.

7

Subject: ID Vault

I have had issues in the past with the ID Vault and was wondering what the best practices were and any known issues. Specifically related to changing passwords.

8

Subject: Smart Upgrade Kit for Notes 8.5.1

Is there any Smart Upgrade Kit available to upgrade Notes R7.0.x to R8.5.1?

9

Subject: upgrade

You will need to use the full kit for 8.5.1 which should upgrade with no issue

here is a helpful technote

Lotus Software Knowledge Base Document

Title: Understanding a Smart Upgrade Kit Document

Doc #: 1422819

URL: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21422819

10

Subject: Windows 7 and multiple users

In the past, I have created second user configurations using a second data directory and a copy of notes.ini that pointed to the new directory. I would create a shortcut the pointed to the correct ini file (notes.exe ={path-to-new-inifile}). I have this working on Windows versions up to XP.

Recently, I was working with a tech that was trying to do this on a Windows 7 (64 bit) PC and it complained that Domino server was already running. It seemed like a permission issue on the copy of the ini file because if he modified the existing ini to point to the new directory, it worked fine. Pointing to the new ini generated error even if that file pointed to original data directory.

Tech said the permissions on the new ini file matched those of original. The workaround was to locate new ini file in another directory, but that’s not optimal.

Could this have been due to it being 64 Bit Windows, or just a general issue on Win7? Any advice on how to implement two users on the same PC?

11

Subject: interoperability between notes7 clients and domino8 server

how it can be ensured that new policies with domino8.x do not affect notes7 clients?

12

Subject: need more information

I dont really understand your question…an R7 client cant act on functionality it doesnt have. So in specific, which “new” functions do you refer to?

13

Subject: 8.5.1 FP 1 or 3

Hi,

I’ve 8.5.1 client installed and running on a Windows Server 2003 Standard (64-bit). However, when I tried to update it either using FP1, 2 or 3, it will just failed.

Patching it on a Windows 2003 Server Standard (32-bit) seem to be ok. Could I just copy the whole folder from this server to the 64-bit server?

Thank you.

14

Subject: Single Signon

when using smart upgrade how do we select single signon as part of the install? many of our clients were previously installed without single signon. is there a switch? and if so what is the switch.

15

Subject: yes

16

Subject: What does “Invalid SequenceTime” refer to?

Last week, I installed a new 8.5.1 server as an additional server in a domain, as step1 of the “upgrade and move to new hardware” project. I did an OS copy of all of the mailfiles to the 8.5.1 server on the new hardware. When I started the 8.5.1 server, the following message was displayed numerous times for most of the mailfiles. I can not find any documentation that explains this message. There were no errors in the logs on the 7.0.2 server that these mailfiles came from. Can someone explain, please?

"Fixup: Invalid SequenceTime ‘date and time’ for Note ID… in database… repaired. New sequencetime is ‘date and time’.

17

Subject: Translog

This might be caused by problems in your transaction log. you can try to disable transaction logging, delete all tlog’s and then re-enable it again.

18

Subject: re: upgrade - steps

In two weeks we are scheduled to upgrade from 7.0.4 to 8.5.1 FP2. Our production domino servers run on System i V6R1. We are taking the following steps to upgrade (as recommanded by IBM)

1 - Upgrade Domino Administrators’ clients to 8.5.1

2 - Upgrade the design of the domino directory to 8.5.1 on the primary server (allow time for the cluster mates to catch up)

3 - Install a new of 8.5.1 server to the existing domino domain (as additional server)

4 - The existing 7.0.4 server will not be upgraded. Users will be migrated to the 8.5.1 server. When all users, services, tasks moved to the new 8.5.1, the existing 7.0.4 server will retire

I’d like to know if we are missing any steps…anything else that we shyould be aware of?..our tests in Windows environment (using this method)have been successful.

19

Subject: Some ideas

This practice is good to go if you really want to change the server name. In general it is not required to do a side by side upgrade. An in-place upgrade can be done, if you know what server environment you are dealing with.

I recommend to take a closer look at:

  • compatibility of 3rd party software products to Domino 8.5. (especially backup software and others)

  • correct configuration of backup SW, especially to support DAOS

  • if you did not already plan for it:ENABLE DAOS!

  • evaluate if you want to upgrade from 32 to 64 bit, for large servers this makes sense.

20

Subject: Single Logon, Shared Login and ID Vault

What is the long-term plan for Single Logon, Shared Login and ID Vault?

We’re currently using Single Logon and it works quite well for keeping Windows, ID file and Internet passwords in sync.

The problem with moving to Shared Login is that it doesn’t support roaming and it doesn’t do anything with the Internet Password.

I’d like to use ID Vault but it doesn’t support Single Logon at the moment.