Upgrade 6.3 to 8.1 - advice needed

[zbot]

Hi all,

We have a 6.3.3 server running on RHEL 5. Obviously with end of support coming in the next couple months for both of those products we need to upgrade. We have purchased new hardware and plan to install RHEL 7. We would like to upgrade TSM to 8.1.

Looking at the migration methods it doesn't appear we have a lot of choices since we are running RHEL5 on the source server. Is an export/import migration our only option here? Everything must be offline during this type of migration correct? I've read it can be a long process. I know no one can give me exact time but any guesses how long we are talking? Hours, days? For reference we are talking a single server with 60 nodes and the DB is about 224GB. Any insight would be much appreciated.

Thanks!!

 

[marclant]

Is the new hardware for the server only, or server + data storage for storage pools? In other words, are you reusing your same data storage (SAN disk + tape library) for the new server?

 

[zbot]

Currently the DB is installed on local disk and the storage pools are mount on a Dell EqualLogic (via iSCSI). We were purchased the new server with enough disk to move off the EqualLogic and planned to have the storage pools on the local disk as well. I could mount the iSCSI storage pools on the new server if that would speed things up.

 

[marclant]

If you keep your storage, you could do this at a high level:
On old server:
- upgrade to RHEL6
- upgrade to Spectrum Protect 8.1
- backup DB
- shut down
- disconnect storage pool disk

On new server:
- connect storage pool disk, use the same mount points as on the old server
- install Spectrum Protect 8.1
- restore the DB


As an alternative:
On old server:
- backup DB
- shut down
- disconnect storage pool disk

On new server:
- install RHEL6
- connect storage pool disk, use the same mount points as on the old server
- install same version of TSM as original server
- restore the DB
- upgrade to Spectrum Protect 8.1
- upgrade to RHEL7

If you don't like either of these options, then export/import.

 

[zbot]

Thanks Marclant!! I think we're going to try and go the RHEL 6 route. We can't do an in-place RHEL6 upgrade to our existing RHEL5 machine. So I think we'll just build a temporary machine with RHEL6 to use for the migration up to Spectrum Protect 8.1. Thanks for the detailed options. I appreciate it!!