Preparing to upgrade

You can use the following information to help prepare your upgrade of IBM Spectrum Control. Good planning helps you avoid delays and problems when you upgrade your system.

General considerations

Attention:
  • You cannot upgrade from any release before IBM Spectrum Control 5.3.0. If you are currently running a version of IBM Spectrum Control earlier than 5.3.0, you must upgrade to IBM Spectrum Control 5.3.0 or later. For more information, see External link iconIBM Spectrum Control interoperability matrix.

    When you are at IBM Spectrum Control 5.3.0 or later, you can upgrade to the highest version of IBM Spectrum Control.

  • To help streamline, improve and clarify the product licenses for IBM Spectrum Control, the following licenses were renamed:
    • IBM Spectrum® Control Standard Edition is now IBM Spectrum Control
    • IBM Spectrum Control Standard Select Edition is now IBM Spectrum Control Select Edition

    If you have the Advanced edition from previous releases, you are not affected by the renaming of product licenses. After you upgrade to 5.4.0, you can pick up right where you left off. However, keep in mind that all licenses are impacted by the deprecated features that are listed at Discontinued features in IBM Spectrum Control.

  • Upgrading the operating system of a server where IBM Spectrum Control is installed is not supported. If you upgrade the operating system of the server, IBM Spectrum Control might be unable to continue monitoring your resources. If you must upgrade the server, contact the IBM® Support team for IBM Spectrum Control Support to discuss your options.

Before you upgrade

Consider the following information before you upgrade:
  • Before you upgrade IBM Spectrum Control, apply all available updates and patches to the operating system of the server where you installed IBM Spectrum Control. This is not the same as upgrading the operating system of the server where IBM Spectrum Control is installed, which is not supported.
  • IBM Spectrum Control no longer supports Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication. To learn more about how to download and install IBM Copy Services Manager, see External link icon IBM Copy Services Manager.
  • The time and space considerations that are required to upgrade IBM Spectrum Control varies from site to site. Several factors, such as how many devices are being monitored and the version from which you are upgrading, affect the time that is required for the upgrade to complete. In some cases, the upgrade might take up to several hours to complete.

    Note, that when you upgrade IBM Spectrum Control the database repository for metadata is reorganized to include all the latest changes and improvements in the new release. During the upgrade, the database reorganization process might take some time to complete or appear to be frozen. This behavior is typical, especially for larger environments or when you are upgrading from a much older release.

    To help ensure that the upgrade and database reorganization complete successfully, make sure that you have enough space on your file system:
    • On a Windows operating system: 1 GB - 2 GB on the drive where you installed IBM Spectrum Control.
    • On a Linux® operating system: 100 MB - 300 MB in the /home file system and 1 GB - 2 GB in the/ file system.
    • On a AIX® operating system: 100 MB - 300 MB in the /home file system and 1 GB - 2 GB in the/opt file system.
  • When you do upgrades of IBM Spectrum Control an offline reorganization of tables in the database repository occurs. These table reorganizations do not use temporary table space, so you need to consider the amount of free disk space you need to have before your upgrade. During an upgrade of IBM Spectrum Control, you must have free disk space equivalent to the largest amount of disk space that is being used by a single table in the database repository.
    To determine the largest amount of disk space that is being used by a single table in the database repository, complete the following tasks on the computer where the IBM Spectrum Control database repository is installed:
    1. Open a Db2® command prompt or switch to the Db2 instance owner.
    2. Run the following commands:
      1. db2 connect to <database name> 
      2. db2 "select MAX(physical_space) as needed_space from 
(select decimal((DATA_OBJECT_P_SIZE+INDEX_OBJECT_P_SIZE+LONG_OBJECT_P_SIZE+LOB_OBJECT_P_SIZE+XML_OBJECT_P_SIZE+COL_OBJECT_P_SIZE)/1024,10,2)
as physical_space from sysibmadm.admintabinfo where TABSCHEMA='TPC' order by physical_space desc)"
      3. db2 disconnect <database name>

      where <database name> is the name of the IBM Spectrum Control database repository, which is TPCDB by default.

      Record the result from Step 2b and increase that value by 10 percent; this is the required amount of free disk space in megabytes.

      The required free disk space must be available in each file system or drive where the database repository tables are stored.

    To determine the file systems or drives where the database repository tables are stored, do the following tasks on the computer where the IBM Spectrum Control database repository is installed:
    1. Examine the installation_dir/config/InstallVariable.properties file.
    2. Record the value of the following parameters:
      DFTDBPATH
CSTDBPATH

    Each directory that is listed in the previously mentioned values is in a file system (AIX /Linux) or in a drive (Windows). The required free disk space must be available in each file system or drive.

    During the upgrade of IBM Spectrum Control, the reorganization of tables in the database repository is logged to the installation_dir/logs/log/traceInstaller_0.log. file.

  • On Windows operating systems, ensure that all command prompts are closed. If you have open command prompts that have a current working directory in the IBM Spectrum Control installation directory structure, the upgrade might fail in various places because the upgrade process modifies certain directories.
  • On Windows operating systems, ensure that the user who logs into the operating system to perform the upgrade of IBM Spectrum Control is an Administrator and does have the Debug programs privilege and does not have the Deny access to this computer from the network privilege in the Windows operating system security policy. These privileges can be found in Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment. After the upgrade of IBM Spectrum Control is complete, the required privileges for the user who performed the upgrade can be changed, but only if that user is not set as the Common User or the Db2 user in IBM Spectrum Control.
  • The full X Window System must be installed to display the IBM Spectrum Control installation program on AIX and Linux operating systems.
  • On Windows operating systems, if you installed the IBM Monitoring Agent, stop the Monitoring Agent for Windows OS Primary and Monitoring Agent for Windows OS Watchdog services. After your upgrade is complete, you can start these services again.

Security

Consider the following security information related to upgrades:
  • Installing IBM Spectrum Control involves using your operating system in manners typical for installing new application software. If your antivirus software is set on the maximum mode, it might prevent some of your changes from being accepted. To verify that your upgrade completes correctly, enable your antivirus software product to allow the following instances:
    • The /etc/hosts file can be edited
    • Files can be created in the /temp directory
    • New executable files can be created in the C:\Program Files directory.
    McAfee tip for Windows: If McAfee Adaptive Threat Protection is enabled on the server where IBM Spectrum Control is installed, it might prevent some services from starting or stopping. To help avoid this issue, open McAfee Adaptive Threat Protection and go to settings. In the Real Protect Scanning (Windows only) section, verify if Enable client-based scanning is selected. If so, select Low from the Sensitivity level list.

    For more information about McAfee Adaptive Threat Protection, see the following links:

  • If you upgrade from a release earlier than IBM Spectrum Control 5.3.6 to the current version of IBM Spectrum Control, the SSL certificates that are used by the Data server and Storage Resource agents are not updated automatically to the SHA-256 hash algorithm.

    If you want to use the SHA-256 hash algorithm after you upgrade to the current version of IBM Spectrum Control, you must perform the steps in Replacing default SSL certificates for the Data server and Storage Resource agents with custom SSL certificates.

  • There are new certificate requirements from the CA/B Forum that are strictly enforced for macOS Catalina users that might affect your ability to access the IBM Spectrum Control GUI. During an upgrade of IBM Spectrum Control, certificates self-signed by IBM Spectrum Control will be made automatically compliant. However, if one or more of your certificates are not self-signed by IBM Spectrum Control, see IBM Spectrum Control and macOS Catalina (10.15) Increased Security Policies on SSL Certificates and validate that your certificates are compliant.
  • Starting with IBM Spectrum Control 5.3.6, all default self-signed certificates have an expiration date of 825 days based on the new certificate requirements from the CA/B Forum. By default, upgrades of IBM Spectrum Control always renew the expiration of all default self-signed certificates used by the product for another 825 days. However, if you have installed your own certificates, IBM Spectrum Control does not modify those certificates for you.

After you upgrade

Consider the following information after you upgrade:
  • If your upgrade process fails and a component cannot be upgraded, the upgrade process ends and the status of the component is shown as failed. When you start the upgrade process again, the installation program resumes upgrading the failed component.
  • If you do a version upgrade of Db2 (For example, 11.1 to 11.5.7), you must apply a valid license to Db2 following the upgrade.
  • After you upgrade to IBM Spectrum Control, all trace settings are reset to the default values. If you changed the trace settings, you must reset the trace settings after an upgrade.

Cognos Analytics

Consider the following information if you use Cognos Analytics 11:
  • If you plan to upgrade your Cognos Analytics 11 environment, see How to upgrade your version of Cognos® Analytics. After you upgrade IBM Spectrum Control and upgrade your Cognos Analytics 11 environment, you can upgrade the pre-defined reports by importing the pre-defined reports package from the most updated version of IBM Spectrum Control into Cognos Analytics. See Importing IBM Spectrum Control pre-defined reports package.
  • After you complete the upgrade of your Cognos Analytics 11 environment on Linux or AIX, verify that the link from the 32-Bit Db2 library to the Cognos_installation_dir/bin/ directory is still present. If it is not present, perform Step 3 in Copying Db2 files and linking the Db2 library on Linux and AIX.
  • When you complete the upgrade of your Cognos Analytics 11 environment, and you save the Cognos Configuration, if you encounter a failure in the Check password for JVM truststore step, and it generates the CAM-CRP-1613 error in the Details, see How to regenerate cryptographic keys in Cognos Anaytics 11.
  • The IBM Cognos BI Reports component is no longer part of the IBM Spectrum Control product and is uninstalled during the upgrade. It is recommended that you back up your entire IBM Spectrum Control system before you proceed with an upgrade.

    After you upgrade IBM Spectrum Control and are using IBM Cognos Analytics, import the pre-defined reports package into Cognos Analytics. See External link icon Importing IBM Spectrum Control pre-defined reports package.