Planning the update

Plan the update process in advance to ensure both the full benefit from the latest Precise release and adherence to your schedules and needs.

To ensure a quick and efficient update, review the following sub-topics before beginning the procedure:

• Prerequisites for the update
• The order of the servers update
• Downtime of the monitored technologies
• Downtime of the Precise product
• Update planning checklist

Prerequisites for the update

Before planning the update process, verify that:

• Your system meets all minimum requirements updating to the latest version as per the Precise Minimum Requirements for Installation Guide.
• The Precise installation that you want to update is fully updated to the required previous version. If some agents are not yet updated to the required previous version, complete the update to that version prior to attempting to update to the latest version.
• Free disk space exists on the servers where the required previous version is installed. Minimum requirements include:
  • 0.5GB on each server containing Precise Agents
  • 2.5 GB on the Precise Framework server
• 0.5GB free disk space exists on the client server from which you want to execute the update.
• Precise for Tuxedo is not installed in your environment.

Server update order

Your existing Precise installation typically spans many servers. Because the update to the latest version of Precise is performed per server, you should plan in advance the order in which you will update all servers comprising your existing Precise installation.

If you are unable to update all servers at the same time and are updating only a few servers at once, review the implications described in Implications of a phased update to the latest version of Precise.

The order of the server update is:

1. Update all FocalPoint servers.
2. Update all other servers.

When starting the update, select all the FocalPoints servers. You can add additional servers for the update once the FocalPoints servers are updated or as part of the FocalPoint update. In which case the server update starts once the FocalPoint servers are completely updated.

Implications of a phased update to the latest version of Precise

If you are unable to update all servers at the same time and are updating only a few servers at once, the following limitations apply to your Precise system functionality:

• After starting an update, you cannot install, edit, or uninstall instances on a server until the update is complete.
• For installed Web and J2EE clusters, new instances are not installed until the cluster's servers are updated.
• If you created a Template Listener as part of you server's image, new Template Listener installations fail after the update. You must recreate the Template Listener once the framework update is complete.

Downtime of the monitored technologies

The update process does not require any downtime of the monitored technologies.

Downtime of the Precise product

The update process involves downtime of the Precise product itself as described below.

FocalPoints

When updating the servers with the Precise FocalPoints, the installed Precise performance monitoring system is not in operation. Once the Precise Framework update is complete, Precise resumes all performance monitoring provided by the previous version of Precise.

The time required for updating a server with the Precise FocalPoints may vary depending on:

• the strength of the server with the FocalPoint
• the strength of the server where you are using AdminPoint to apply the update
• the file transfer speed
• the amount of Precise technologies monitored by Precise
• the time it takes to perform post-application action items

In general, updating a server with a Precise FocalPoint is estimated at one hour. Updating a server with a FocalPoint is fastest when application of the update is performed using AdminPoint on the Main node server with the Precise FocalPoint, and the update is located on storage providing good response time to that server.

If you have a federated Precise deployment, then when updating the servers with the FocalPoint of the Main node, your entire Precise federated deployment is inoperable for performance monitoring. When updating another node's servers with a FocalPoint, only that node is inoperable for performance monitoring.

Non-FocalPoint agents

Precise agents do not collect performance data during an update. The time required to update a server running Precise agents varies depending on the technology type and the number of Precise agents on that server, as well as the factors described above regarding updating the server with the Precise FocalPoints. In general, updating a Precise agents server is estimated at 20 minutes.

Update planning checklist

Use the following checklist to verify that you are ready to update Precise to the latest version:

 

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