Mixed version deployment between Engineering Lifecycle Management instances

In this scenario, an Engineering Lifecycle Management deployment consists of an IBM® Jazz® Team Server and one or more registered applications. The mixed version deployment uses the federated topology or multiple collaborating enterprise topologies. In this case, one or more instances in the deployment are upgraded to version N while the others remain at version N-1.

Individual instances might also have a mixed version deployment within per the Mixed version deployment within an Engineering Lifecycle Management instance scenario.

Mixed version compatibility between Engineering Lifecycle Management instances can be best evaluated knowing the cross-instance interactions in place. The following scenarios must be done that uses the same Engineering Lifecycle Management version.

Considerations

  • For N-1 compatibility details, see, Client and server version compatibility.
  • Distributed SCM compatibility with the previous versions is not supported. If Distributed SCM is used between the Engineering Workflow Management instances, then each Engineering Workflow Management must be on the same Engineering Lifecycle Management version.
  • Multiple Global Configuration Management instance scenarios (building GCs of GCs from different GCMs) must be at the same version. This is an experimental capability.
  • A Federated Lifecycle Query Engine, where an Lifecycle Query Engine takes inputs from different Engineering Lifecycle Management instances must be at same version as the contributing applications.
  • Reporting across Engineering Lifecycle Management instances that are building a report by using the content from a data source in another Engineering Lifecycle Management instance must be at same version. The Essentially, all core reporting components (RB, Engineering Insights, Data Collection Component, Lifecycle Query Engine, LDX) used in constructing a report, must be at the same version.
  • Creating cross-server links that uses drag or copy and paste must be done with same version.
  • Jazz Authorization Server(JAS) is supported when used with mixed Engineering Lifecycle Management versions. However, it is only tested with an earlier version of JAS with a newer version of Engineering Lifecycle Management. In this scenario, the version of WebSphere® Liberty server Profile that is deployed is more important. 
  • Ensure that the existing 3rd party or custom integrations are compatible with a mixed version deployment.
  • Consider whether any new feature released in version N of Engineering Lifecycle Management requires all applications that are involved in the feature’s scenario to be at the same version.
  • Existing automated deployment scripts might need some altering.

Guidelines

  • Upgrade any Federated Engineering Lifecycle Management instance first to version N.
  • Upgrade of the remaining Engineering Lifecycle Management applications, for example Engineering Workflow Management, Engineering Requirements Management DOORS® Next, Engineering Test Management, Rhapsody® Model Manager in a staggered approach. Time the upgrade when best suits your needs. Some can remain at version N-1 while others are at version N.
  • IBM desktop, build, and command line clients are N-1 compatible with their servers per Client and server version compatibility. They can be upgraded anytime after their server is upgraded.