How to Upgrade (or Downgrade) select DB2 Instances between various Product Offerings

Resolving The Problem

It is important to note, that it is a very good idea to make sure you take backups of your database(s) before you pursue any sort of upgrade, not only with DB2 itself, but even when upgrading other software that interacts with DB2, or upgrading the OS that DB2 lives on.

Using BACKUP DATABASE

Starting with DB2 V9.1 and higher, the process of moving up (or down) from one fixpak level to another is easy, and can be done across DB2 Product Offerings (WSE to ESE or vice versa.)

Upgrading Fixpak

If you have a db2 instance (for this example db2inst1), that is currently at a specific fixpak level (for this example FP4), you can choose to upgrade just this instance, to a higher fixpak level.

For example, lets update db2inst1 from V9.1 FP4 to FP5. To do this, you should:

- Stop the DB2 instance if necessary (db2stop)

- As root install V9.1 FP5 in location of your choosing

- Still as root cd to install dir then cd to the "instance" dir

- Run the 'db2iupdt' script from this location

      ./db2iupdt db2inst1

Downgrading Fixpak

If you find yourself in a situation in which you wish to downgrade an instance, you can do so easily as well. Continuing with the above example, lets say we want to take it back to FP4. To do this, you should:

- Stop the db2 instance if necessary (db2stop)

- cd to the V9.1 FP4 dir then cd to the "instance" dir

- As root, run the 'db2iupdt' script from this location

     ./db2iupdt -D db2inst

This will bring the instance back to the V9.1 FP4 code base.

It is also possible to go from Workgroup Server Edition to Enterprise Server Edition, using the same methods shown above.

Example: Update db2inst1 from V9.1 FP4 WSE to V9.1 FP5 ESE.

- Stop the db2 instance if necessary (db2stop)

- As root install V9.1 FP5 ESE to location of your choosing

- Still as root cd to install dir then cd to the "instance" dir

- Run the 'db2iupdt' script from this location

          ./db2iupdt db2inst1

Moving Between Editions

Just as you were able to move up to ESE from WSE, you can move the opposite direction as well (ESE to WSE). It is even possible to move do different fixpak levels as well. For example you can move from DB2 V9.1 FP4 ESE to DB2 V9.1 FP2 WSE using the same general instructions shown above.

Moving from ESE to WSE will likely produce a warning message (DBI1282W), indicating the instance was updated from a higher instance type to a lower instance type. The new instance will use the default configuration settings for the new instance type. Check the values in the new database manager configuration file and update the parameters as required.

DBI1282W  The database manager configuration files could not be merged. The original configuration file was saved as ~/sqllib/backup/db2systm.old (The original instance type is ese. The instance type to be migrated or updated is wse.)

If you are concerned about your instance settings, it may be a good idea to back up your configurations before any instance updating. You can export (and import) your configuration settings using the db2cfexp and db2cfimp tools: Here are more detailed steps:

- Export your instance configuration settings for the one instance you wish to upgrade:

db2cfexp <filename> BACKUP  

db2cfexp - Connectivity configuration export tool command

The BACKUP option creates a configuration profile of the DB2 instance. This profile contains all of the instance configuration information.