[sims] Solus 2/3 - Summer release "Needed" for exam results?

[Steve21]

Morning All,

 

Had our Solus3/SIMs server migration planned in for over summer as we were told only Spring release was needed for this, and now apparently today our exams officer has been reading new information that says Summer release is needed for the exam results. Anyone else had any information on this? As it's pretty much screwed up our migration plans if that's the case :s

 

Thanks,

Steve

[PhilNeal]

The summer release always deals with last minute info about exams. Unfortunately the AOs/DfE also issue a small number of corrections after this so there is normally a patch or two after the summer release.

[Steve21]

Is there going to be anyway to do the upgrade/patches without S3 even if it's a once off manual kind of thing?

 

Otherwise guess we'll need to roll out S3 on the wrong server, deploy all the updates and then somehow switch all the clients over to the new S3 server? :s If that's even possible without uninstalling all again

 

Steve

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

Yes you can download the ISO and do a manual upgrade like self hosting LSUs do.

[PhilNeal]

The summer release isn't supported on S2 and patches will be for the summer release.

[Cache]

Otherwise guess we'll need to roll out S3 on the wrong server, deploy all the updates and then somehow switch all the clients over to the new S3 server? :s If that's even possible without uninstalling all again

 

Yes you can do this, you just follow the Solus3 Migration guide for moving to a new server. Basically you update a couple of configuration strings on the old server to point to the new and the Solus3 agents should redirect automatically to the new. You just need to keep the old server running for a bit longer, if you need to decommission the old one, then you can always update the deployment server from within the Solus3 agent or I guess by editing/scripting an edit of the solus 3 agent configuration file (I've not looked at editing the configuration file).

 

The last ESSUpgradeAgentToolsBeta that I saw a Capita guy using also seemed to have a way of sending an update out to the Agents providing the clients were accessible over the network as well.

[ITJS2015]

Capita ill be soon forcing all schools on solus 2 to move on to solus 3 soon as they are killing it off

[ALittleFish]

The easiest option for you will be to download the Summer upgrade ISO from Capita's My Account Website and running the upgrades that way. Then just install Solus3 on the new server during your migration.

 

Once they have been released they will be available to download from this webpage: https://myaccount.capita-cs.co.uk/Notifications/SIMS-Release-Download-Links [/Notifications/SIMS-Release-Download-Links] (does require you to have an account to access the downloads).

 

Capita's Ess_Upgrade_Tools do have a way of updating the configuration files on the workstations but that will require you to have a copy of the tools in the first place.

 

The amount of time taken to set up Solus3 on the current server, configuring of the SQL server's, databases and services in Solus3 to then change them all again once you've migrated to the new server will account for the time it'd take to download the ISO files from Capita anyway. You'll also need to create the Solus3 Repository's shared folder on the new server and either copy across the files to the new server or download again from Solus3.

 

A way around the workstation agents if you do install before migrating would be just to reinstall the agents from Solus3 if they don't update automatically. The agents will show with a Red circled "R" if they haven't communicated with the new Solus3 Server.

 

However if you install Solus3 on the current Server and don't migrate the Solus3 database properly (Actually install a brand new Solus3 SQL database instead of migrating the old one to the new server) then you will have issues with the Solus3 agents as they will be assigned completely different Solus3 Agent ID's. If this does happen then you will need the ESS_Upgrade_Tools.exe to correct the Agent config files, or then Query the Solus3 database in SQL Manager to get the correct agent ID's for the workstations and update these manually. (You could export the agent ID's from the SQL Database Query into a spreadsheet and create a script to update the agent config files from the spread sheet, but that goes past my knowledge of scripting.)

 

Basically save your time and effort and just use the ISO files to upgrade SIMS.

Edited July 1, 2016 by ALittleFish

[Cache]

@ALittleFish that is assuming that there aren't several patches that need to be applied to the release and if they are workstation patches then you will need to apply to potentially all machines manually.

 

To migrate Solus3 took me at most 2 hours and then I just left the Solus3 Agents to do their own thing in redirecting to the new server. It wasn't a hardship at all.

[dapaulio]

Is there a high demand for aims during the summer holiday other than exams.?

 

What I may be inclined to do is tell everyone aims will be unavailable except for a select few machines. install s3 and only deploy the agent and summer release to your exams officer and select few others for the mean time.

 

Once exams are over you will hopefully have your shiny new server. Migrate it over then deploy the agent and the summer release to the rest of your client.

 

You then only have to check a select few that may have the old server config