Upgrade scenarios

Upgrade planning depends on the details of your existing installation. The starting version and platform choices all influence the upgrade path of your existing components.

Thoroughly review the planning and preparing information to understand the requirements for the upgrade process. You can determine what steps can be accomplished before you run the upgrade in order to ensure that system downtime is as short as possible.

Make sure that you designate a time for the upgrade process when no users will be accessing the system and no data will be modified.

If you are starting from a version between V5.2.1 and V5.5.7, you must upgrade to V5.5.8 first, and then upgrade to the current version. For information on upgrading to V5.5.8, see Planning and preparing for FileNet P8 upgrade in the documentation for FileNet® P8 V5.5.x.

If you are starting from a version earlier than V5.2.0, you must upgrade to V5.2.1 first, and then to V5.5.8 before you can upgrade to the current version. For information on upgrading to V5.2.1, see Upgrading and configuring FileNet P8 in the documentation for FileNet P8 V5.2.1.

It is recommended to update your starting version to the most recent fix pack level before you begin the upgrade.

Content Platform Engine and the following associated components must be upgraded together:
  • IBM® Content Navigator client files
  • IBM Content Search Services
  • IBM FileNet Content Federation Services
  • Case Analyzer can be upgraded at the same time if you need full access to case data after the upgrade. However, you can also upgrade this component later, such as the following weekend. All backlogged data will be processed after those upgrades are complete. See the Case Analyzer documentation for information on upgrading this component.
Note: Do not attempt to install a lower version of the application on an existing higher version.

See the FileNet P8 Fix Pack Compatibility Matrices for a list of compatible component versions.