SIMS upgrade

[itgeek]

Hi,

 

Just after some advise. We need to upgrade our sims server os and sql version, from 2008 R2 -2012 R2 - 2019 . I am considering doing an in place upgrade as we have so many connectors that export etc from sims.net. Has anyone done an in place upgrade before? I do have VMware and veeam so I am take a snapshot and backups prior to this. I know it would be a lot cleaner doing a new install and migration but its going to be a pain with SOLUS ip address etc etc. Planning for the summer.

 

Any advise would be welcomed?

 

Thanks

[Steve21]

Just a note, but most of the connectors use the connect.ini to point to SIMs, so generally if you update that on the old SIMs server they'll just point to the new one. At least that way you can migrate over, and slowly move connectors as time allows. Done that in a few places previously

 

Steve

[mavhc]

Yeah, did 2008 r2 to 2012r2, then 2012r2 to 2019 without much of a problem, with snapshots it's easy enough, just have to make people aware and not add loads of new data until they've done enough testing

[FirstClass]

I'm about to do a 2012r2 - 2019 in place upgrade on a Sims server over the summer. I'm going to move the VM's to new hardware and upgrade to 2019 so fingers crossed it will work ok after.

 

Will SQL need updating too?

 

Thnaks

 

Pete

[aac]

Yes, SQL should ideally be upgraded at the same time if you are on a version prior to SQL 2014. You cannot use a version higher than SQL 2016 though as ESS do not support it as they claim to be committed to optimising SIMS for SQL 2016 and you don't want to loose support. This is information is also available on the latest SIMS technical roadmap which I think the current version was released December 2021.

[mavhc]

https://customer.support-ess.com/sys_attachment.do?sys_id=f9ecfc2e1b8411909f2142a7b04bcba9 2022 version

 

Nothing's changed, they're still failing to spend any of our money actually updating the software. It's still really uses SQL 2012 api, so they've just stolen our money for 10 years+3 future years they conned everyone into

[FirstClass]

@aac Don't suppose you have a step by step guide for upgrading the SQL do you?

 

Cheers

Edited June 22, 2022 by FirstClass

[ThatBoringBloke]

Interesting that Hosted SIMS is still on 2012r2...

[DrCheese]

https://customer.support-ess.com/sys_attachment.do?sys_id=f9ecfc2e1b8411909f2142a7b04bcba9 2022 version

 

Nothing's changed, they're still failing to spend any of our money actually updating the software. It's still really uses SQL 2012 api, so they've just stolen our money for 10 years+3 future years they conned everyone into

 

Doesn't even mention Windows Server 2022, which is a joke.

Still give themselves an opt out for supporting the M365 version of office, which is what schools are & should be deploying anyway.

[aac]

@aac Don't suppose you have a step by step guide for upgrading the SQL do you?

 

Cheers

 

I actually did a clean install in the end which is what I have done with all servers in our estate. I did however tinker with an in place upgrade (Windows Server 2012 R2 - 2019) (SQL 2014 - 2016) before going the clean install route though on this server because I wanted to see how smooth the process is these days as many are actually going down the in place upgrade route these days and Microsoft no longer advise against it for OS upgrades. If your SIMS server is a virtual machine then I would say by all means go ahead but if a physical server don't risk it becoming unbootable, at least with a VM you can just apply the checkpoint/snapshot back. The in place upgrade of Windows itself went perfectly well, no issues at all do a disk clean-up once everything is tested and working though to save some space taken by the old OS files. In terms of SQL again the in place upgrade process is simple just a few clicks to upgrade (you can even upgrade edition from ie Express to Standard at the same time just not downgrade). The only thing I noticed and did not like after googling was a lot of left over components from the old SQL install for which it is not clear if this is by design or a known issue Microsoft can't be bothered to fix. But it worked fine and likely these components could largely have simply been uninstalled but this should be the job of the upgrade installer really. In terms of connectors I have all mine and there are a lot on a separate server along with stuff like Azure AD connect and Ruler Connect which is recommended to make an eventual server migration/upgrade easier and smoother...

Edited June 22, 2022 by aac

[mavhc]

If you're not running as a VM, first step is to fix that. Then use snapshots and clones to test everything.

[FirstClass]

I actually did a clean install in the end which is what I have done with all servers in our estate. I did however tinker with an in place upgrade (Windows Server 2012 R2 - 2019) (SQL 2014 - 2016) before going the clean install route though on this server because I wanted to see how smooth the process is these days as many are actually going down the in place upgrade route these days and Microsoft no longer advise against it for OS upgrades. If your SIMS server is a virtual machine then I would say by all means go ahead but if a physical server don't risk it becoming unbootable, at least with a VM you can just apply the checkpoint/snapshot back. The in place upgrade of Windows itself went perfectly well, no issues at all do a disk clean-up once everything is tested and working though to save some space taken by the old OS files. In terms of SQL again the in place upgrade process is simple just a few clicks to upgrade (you can even upgrade edition from ie Express to Standard at the same time just not downgrade). The only thing I noticed and did not like after googling was a lot of left over components from the old SQL install for which it is not clear if this is by design or a known issue Microsoft can't be bothered to fix. But it worked fine and likely these components could largely have simply been uninstalled but this should be the job of the upgrade installer really. In terms of connectors I have all mine and there are a lot on a separate server along with stuff like Azure AD connect and Ruler Connect which is recommended to make an eventual server migration/upgrade easier and smoother...

 

It's already a 2012R2 VM and the idea is to export it to the new hardware and once its booting on the new hardware I plan to do the 2012r2 to 2019 upgrade and then worry about the SQL upgrade once everything is running ok

[mavhc]

Sounds like a good plan

[robjduk]

I did an inplace upgrade from 2012R2 to 2019 last year and it went perfectly. I think in place upgrades have come along way and are a viable option nowadays.

[mikes]

Do you guys upgrade the OS first then the SQL version, or SQL first then the OS ?

And yeah the in-place upgrade seems pretty good nowadays, I remember the days of it being a total disaster. I've upgraded almost all of my servers now to 2019, just left off SIMS as it's very complicated and makes me worried :-(

[mavhc]

Depends on what's supported on what, but usually OS first.

[ordeology]

We did an in-place upgrade from 2008R2 on 5 of our SIMS servers a few years ago we initially cloned the VM's then tested in-place upgrades just did some sanity checks. We went 08R2 - 12R2 - 16 - 19... or we may have stopped at 16 I can't remember. It was a long process as it involved upgrading SQL as well. We did all this over the summer and basically said to everyone SIMS will be out for critical maintenance during this week so we blocked all access to SIMS for that week. We did a full backup initially and also took a snapshot carried out one OS upgrade, checked it, then the next OS upgrade, checked it and so on. We deleted the snapshots when we were happy and kept the initial full backup for a few months I think. There was no issues just took a long time to do 5 servers.

[mikes]

We did an in-place upgrade from 2008R2 on 5 of our SIMS servers a few years ago we initially cloned the VM's then tested in-place upgrades just did some sanity checks. We went 08R2 - 12R2 - 16 - 19... or we may have stopped at 16 I can't remember. It was a long process as it involved upgrading SQL as well. We did all this over the summer and basically said to everyone SIMS will be out for critical maintenance during this week so we blocked all access to SIMS for that week. We did a full backup initially and also took a snapshot carried out one OS upgrade, checked it, then the next OS upgrade, checked it and so on. We deleted the snapshots when we were happy and kept the initial full backup for a few months I think. There was no issues just took a long time to do 5 servers.

 

Yeah did ours in pretty much the same way, but it was just from 2012R2 -> 2019 and SQL2014 to SQL2016. Glad it worked so well, Made a clone at the start just incase and used snapshots during the process; made sure to delete them now as I remember a few years ago I took a snapshot before upgrading a server, forgot to remove the snapshot and it caused loads of problems later down the line as I didn't realise I was running on the snapshot the whole time. Going to do another full backup tonight but it seems to be working fine along with the Intouch and other third party stuff that was there too.

Can't believe how smooth the process was, I was nervous about it for a while - budgeted 2 days, was done in 4 hours!