Migrating TSM server 5.5.4 to 7.x

[Mike]

I've got a 5.5.4 TSM server that I need to migrate to 7.1. The server is running on AIX 6.1. If it makes a difference the hardware is a p570.

While I recognize that the database is totally different in 7.1 vs. 5.5, would it be a relatively straightforward upgrade path? For example, can I upgrade directly to 7.1, or would I need to do an intermediate upgrade step to 6.x, and then a final upgrade from 6.x to 7.x?

Any big "gotchas" I need to be careful of?

So far I'm seeing lots of upgrade/migration docs dealing with upgrading from 5.5 to 6.x, but almost nothing going from 5.5 to 7.1.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[marclant]

You can go directly from 5.5 to 7.1, it's a documented path in the manual: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowl...0/com.ibm.itsm.srv.upgrd.doc/t_srv_upgrd.html

The gotchas are the same regardless you are going to 6.x or 7.x. Planning is the key, therefore you should carefully review the planning section from the link above.

Things that can have a negative impact either immediately or on the long run is the database and logs layout, as well as size. You should also look at the performance section of the manual, there's a best practice section: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGSG7_7.1.0/com.ibm.itsm.perf.doc/t_srv_hw_check.html

 

[rallingham]

One thing I would add is first upgrade to V5.5.7.0 of the TSM Server. I have found issues with the upgrade utiliity in earlier versions that cause failures. The suggested version works well on the upgrade.

 

[rowl]

I had the luxury of deploying a TSM 6.x servers and exporting nodes/data from 5.5.x to 6.x so I never had to run an upgrade like this. One of the things that concerned me about this process was the downtime required. I was told something on the order of 1 hour / GB of DB size to convert from a TSM 5.x to TSM 6.x DB. All of the TSM instances in my scope were 200GB+ in size and 200+ hour outages were out of the question.

I am curious, did that conversion time improve over time or was the 1 hour / GB a fairly accurate estimate? I understand this is dependent on hardware, disk, cpu, memory, etc...but the estimate I was given was based on the hardware I was using which was very high end at the time. HDS VSP FC disk for TSM DB, P550 servers, 4Gb FC connectivity.

-Rowl

 

[chad_small]

Upgrading is a mixed bag. The length of time it takes really depends on the CPU speed/number and RAM along with how big the 5.5 DB to convert currently is. Personally I would create the new 7.1 instance and migrate all the clients to the new server and let the old data expire. Any archives can easily be migrated over time. If you have a large amount of archived data (tens of TB) then you should consider upgrading.

 

[Sunhillow]

We had two upgrades/transitions from 5.5.7 on AIX to 7.1.1.100 on Linux.
The first DB had a size of 35 GB, the second 120 GB and the third that will follow soon is 220 GB.
Downtimes were not too bad, less than 12 hours for the second one, including the extract time.
For the last one the insert will be started in the afternoon, so hopefully it will be completed the next morning to have enough time for testing and adapting all definitions.