Upgrade by using rolling upgrade

You can perform a rolling upgrade from IBM® Spectrum Symphony 7.3.0 or later to the latest version (supported by your selected operating system) of IBM Spectrum Symphony.

Benefits of a rolling upgrade

Consider these benefits of a rolling upgrade:
Phased process is low risk
Rolling upgrade is a two-phased process: first upgrade your hosts by installing and enabling IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 on each host, and then upgrade the cluster to the latest version and enable new features. This way, a cluster administrator can verify each phase before proceeding to the next step. If required, you can also fully roll back your upgrade, so your cluster and hosts return to their original states.
No additional or reduced resources
When you perform a rolling upgrade on your host, your resources are not affected: no extra resources are required, nor are any resources reduced for the cluster. In contrast, during a parallel upgrade, you have two versions of the product co-existing: both the original cluster or new cluster can never reach full capacity and can never fully use all resources, since compute hosts are gradually moving from the old cluster to new cluster.
Minimal impact to workload
The impact to workload during a rolling upgrade is minimal: no downtime to existing running workload as that workload remains running on hosts, and the only downtime to new workload is when the cluster restarts (so new binaries can be started, instead of the old binaries).
Automatic migration of configuration files
A rolling upgrade does not require a complicated manual migration of the cluster configuration files. The appropriate binaries are installed over your existing product version, and all existing configuration remain in tact. Required cluster configuration changes are automatic; new features can be enabled by adding new parameters. In contrast, a parallel upgrade requires more effort and manual configuration changes.
Flexibility for applications to be migrated separately
The rolling upgrade process is complete after the cluster administrator upgrades the hosts and cluster. Updating IBM Spectrum Symphony application configuration to enable features in the new version of IBM Spectrum Symphony can then be completed any time after the rolling upgrade process.

Supported upgrade paths

Before you perform a rolling upgrade, note the upgrade that is supported for specific environments:
Operating systems
You can perform a rolling upgrade from IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.0 or later to IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 on Windows, Linux®, or Linux on POWER®.
Product editions
You can upgrade from the same edition of the product. For example, you can upgrade from IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.0 Advanced Edition to IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 Advanced Edition.
Important: As of IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.2, Express Edition is no longer offered. If you have a version of the product on Express Edition, and want to use IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2, upgrade the product edition first, and then upgrade the product version, as follows:
  1. Upgrade your product edition from IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.1.2 Express Edition to IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.1.2 Standard or Advanced Edition by using the steps in Upgrading your IBM Spectrum Symphony edition.
  2. Upgrade your product version from IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.1.2 Standard or Advanced Edition to IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 Standard or Advanced Edition by using the rolling upgrade process.
Product add-on features
If your previous IBM Spectrum Symphony environment includes IBM Spectrum Symphony add-on features, you can upgrade some or all of those add-on features as well after you complete the rolling upgrade process, by appending the add-on feature entitlements to the entitlement file directly. See Upgrading add-on features after upgrading IBM Spectrum Symphony for details.)
Other IBM products within your cluster
If your environment includesIBM Spectrum LSF®, then when you run the IBM Spectrum Symphony installer during the upgrade process, it checks whether common components (such as EGO) require upgrading or if they were already upgraded during another product upgrade. The IBM Spectrum Symphony installer upgrades only those components that are required for IBM Spectrum Symphony.

Obtain the latest IBM Spectrum Symphony files

To upgrade the latest version of IBM Spectrum Symphony, you require the appropriate files for the new version. Determine the files that you need for installing the new version of IBM Spectrum Symphony on all existing management hosts and compute hosts by considering the following types of files:
  • Installation packages: obtain the packages for your operating system and product edition.
  • Entitlement files: obtain the IBM Spectrum Symphony file for your product edition and version, and for any IBM Spectrum Symphony add-on features you previously entitled for IBM Spectrum Symphony.
  • Fixes: if there are any fixes applicable to your installation, obtain the appropriate files for each operating system and install the fixes after you install the full packages.
  • Database schema and update scripts: obtain the appropriate database schema and update scripts for your supported external database for collecting reporting data.
    Note: There are no schema updates for IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2. However, there are schema updates between IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3 and 7.3.2. If you are upgrading from IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.1, to leverage the latest IBM Spectrum Symphony schema, including the new TASK_ATTRIBUTES partition database table, upgrade to the 7.3.1 schema level. For details, see Upgrading the IBM Spectrum Symphony® database schema to 7.3.1, as applicable.

    If you are performing a rolling upgrade from IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 to 7.3.2, you can use the IBM Spectrum Symphony 7.3.2 database schema as there are no changes for 7.3.2.

Contact your IBM sales representative to obtain all the appropriate packages.