Upgrade workflow

Start of changeThe upgrade workflow can only be used to upgrade an existing appliance to version 1.26.0 or higher. The upgrade performs a conversion of the zCX user data file system. The conversion allocates the same number of STOR disks as the currently defined DATA disks. When the zCX instance is restarted, the conversion process copies the files from DATA disks to the STOR disks.End of change

Start of changeThe user data set allocation workflow variables have changed. The ZCX_DATA* variables are replaced with ZCX_STOR* variables. If you are using an input properties file to create the workflow, make sure that the ZCX_STOR* variables are set. Review zCX instance user data storage for details on the variables. If additional STOR disks are needed, use the add data disks workflow to add the additional STOR disks after the upgrade workflow is performed.End of change

Upgrade workflow path: /usr/lpp/zcx_zos/workflows/upgrade.xml

This workflow applies service and maintenance to an existing zCX instance. The workflow will display the current version of the zCX instance and ask for confirmation of the target version before upgrading.

The upgrade workflow will allocate an alternate ROOT VSAM data set to hold the new service binaries of the zCX instance. It will use the same VOLUME, DATACLAS, STORCLAS and MGMTCLAS that were previously used when provisioning the zCX instance. Before upgrading, ensure there is enough storage in the VOLUME and SMS managed STORCLAS to allocate another ROOT VSAM data set. Currently, the size of this additional data set is 4 GB.

You can perform the upgrade workflow while the target instance is up and running, but you must recycle (start and stop) the instance for the upgrade to take effect. This allows you to schedule service windows for Docker applications running on a zCX instance.

The upgrade workflow will backup one copy of your existing configuration files and ROOT VSAM data set. If there is a failure when executing the upgrade workflow, manually run step 13 ("On error run this step to restore backed up files") to undo the workflow. You can use your installation-specific backup tools to back up all the VSAM data sets associated with the zCX instance (including the instance directory zFS) if you would like additional copies.

If you want to return to the previous service level after upgrading, you can use the rollback workflow. This will rollback your zCX instance service level to the previously saved version.

The upgrade workflow asks you to provide:
  1. The unique name of the zCX instance to upgrade
  2. The zCX instance registry path, if not specified in the workflow variables input file
  3. The zCX install directory path where the zCX binaries are installed. The default location is /usr/lpp/zcx_zos.
When the upgrade workflow asks you to confirm the desired upgrade version of the zCX instance, it will display the:
  • Current ROOT binary information
  • Target ROOT binary infromation
  • Install directory that was used to apply the service to the zCX instance. The default location is /usr/lpp/zcx_zos.