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Table of Contents

• About the up.time 5 Upgrade
• Before You Upgrade: Summary
• Before You Upgrade: Updating Your License Key
• Before You Upgrade: Updating or Changing Your Monitoring Station OS
• Upgrade Paths: Step by Step
• Post-Upgrade Tasks
• FAQ & Other Resources

About the up.time 5 Upgrade

Welcome to up.time 5! Please review the up.time 5 Release Notes to learn about the changes and enhancements in up.time 5. There are a number of important questions and facts about the up.time 5 upgrade that you need to understand before you get started.

Before you start the upgrade you should be aware of the following:

• The upgrade is free to all current support service subscribers.
• The upgrade does not perform any historical data transformation, keeping upgrade time to a minimum.
• To run up.time 5 you must request a new product license key from our License Portal online.
• The supported monitoring station platforms have changed substantially in up.time 5.0 and 5.1. Please review the Supported Platform Changes in up.time 5.0 and Supported Platform Changes in up.time 5.1 KB articles.
• For most platforms, the upgrade time and steps are very similar to those of an up.time service pack update: it should take no longer than 30 minutes for the upgrade to complete, plus any time required for backups and operating system updates.
• The upgrade does not require additional disk space.
• The upgrade maintains all configuration and historical data with the exception of the following:
  • VMware ESX 2 servers are no longer supported in up.time 5; all ESX 2 elements will automatically be removed from your configuration.
  • Time periods will be converted to the new time period definition format.
  • uptime.conf settings will be converted to database variables.
  • ESX socket licenses are no longer required for monitoring ESX servers. A standard server license can now be used to monitor an ESX server with any number of CPU sockets and virtual machines.
• You do not have to upgrade your up.time agents for this upgrade.
• You do not have to upgrade your monitoring station hardware. up.time 5 includes several significant performance enhancements to help extend the life of your hardware.
• The upgrade cannot be rolled back without an OS- and DataStore-level backup that can be reverted to in the event of an upgrade error.
• up.time 5 and up.time 4 cannot be run simultaneously on the same server.

Before You Upgrade: Summary

If you are considering upgrading to up.time 5, do the following:

• Review the up.time 5 Release Notes and up.time 5.1 Release Notes.
• If you wish to try up.time 5.1 before the upgrade, install a fresh version of up.time 5.1 on a test server.
• If you wish to move your monitoring station to a different OS or DataStore, do so before starting the upgrade.

When you are ready to prepare for the upgrade, complete the following checklist:

• Ensure your custom service monitors, action scripts, and alert scripts are compatible with up.time 5.
• Upgrade your up.time 4 monitoring station to version 4.5 or newer.
  (As a starting point, refer to the Upgrading to a New up.time Service Pack KB article.)
• Prepare for any OS-level updates you may have to make during the upgrade, as described later in this section.
• Back up your monitoring station system or OS, and the DataStore.
  (For help, refer to the Back Up and Recovering up.time KB article for information on backing up the DataStore.)
• Back up some of your existing up.time configuration files:
  • [uptime_directory]/uptime.conf
  • [uptime_directory]/uptime4d.lax (if you have made any changes to this file)
  • [uptime_directory]/apache/conf/httpd.conf (if you have made any changes to this file)
• Request an up.time 5 license key, as described later in this section.
• Book appropriate maintenance windows for the monitoring station.
• Communicate the upgrade plan to your up.time users.

NOTE: Ensure you review the supported platform changes in up.time 5!

Before You Upgrade: Updating Your License Key

An up.time 5 license key is required as part of the upgrade process. up.time 5 will not function until you have updated your key.

Clients with more than one deployment or with more than 250 servers must contact technical support to activate their license upgrade. All other clients can perform the following steps to request a new license:

• Log in to the Support Portal (http://support.uptimesoftware.com).
• Click 'My uptime' on the main or side navigation bar.
• Click 'License Portal' on the My uptime page.
• On your first visit to the License Portal, you will automatically enter the Upgrade License Wizard.
• Follow the wizard steps.
• At the end of the process, your key will be displayed; copy the contents to a file named license.dat.
  (Note that you can return to the License Portal at any time to retrieve your upgraded license key.)

Note: In up.time 5, ESX socket licenses are no longer required. For your updated license, you will receive 1 standard server license (to be used to monitor one physical server running ESX) for every 2 ESX socket licenses you are presently using with up.time 4. For more information on license conversion, contact sales@uptimesoftware.com.

Before You Upgrade: Updating or Changing Your Monitoring Station OS

In order to function correctly with up.time 5, some operating systems will require service pack or platform upgrades. The following table outlines which supported up.time 4 platforms require updates to work with up.time 5, as well as the migration path. Platforms not found in the table do not require any OS updates.

When applying OS updates as part of the up.time 5 upgrade process, follow these steps:

Step 1: Stop the up.time processes.

Step 2: Apply the operating system patches or updates.

Step 3: Restart the up.time DataStore process, leave the other up.time services stopped.

Step 4: Continue with the up.time 5 upgrade process.

Upgrade Paths: Step by Step

Upgrade Paths

• Upgrading on Windows
• Upgrading on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Upgrading on Solaris
• Upgrading on AIX
• Upgrading on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Upgrading on Windows

Important: Be sure you have read the Before You Upgrade: Updating or Changing Your Monitoring Station OS section to find out if your monitoring station system requires an OS update or upgrade to run up.time 5.

Step 1: Ensure you have the following (as previously outlined in the Before You Upgrade section):

• up.time 5 license key
• up.time 4 system and DataStore backup
• backup copy of uptime.conf
• backup copy of uptime4d.lax (if modified)
• backup copy of httpd.conf (if modified)

Step 2: Download the appropriate upgrade package from the Support Portal:

• Log in to Support Portal.
• Click 'Downloads' on the main or side navigation bar.
• Click 'Service Packs' on the download page.
• Click on the download link for the Windows platform.

At the time of the up.time 5 release, the Windows package is named up.time-5.1.177-win32-x86.zip. Note that you can download and upgrade to newer versions of up.time 5 when they are available.

Step 3: Ensure you have logged out of up.time.

Step 4: Log in to your monitoring station console (RDP or direct connection) as the local administrator user.

Step 5: Copy the upgrade installation file to your monitoring station, or mount it in a shared folder that can be accessed from the monitoring station.

Step 6: Stop the "up.time 4 Data Collector" service in the Services control panel.

Step 7: Place your up.time 5 license.dat file in your up.time installation directory, overwriting the existing file if it exists. (The default up.time 4 installation folder is C:\Program Files\uptime software\uptime4.)

Step 8: Extract the upgrade .zip file that you downloaded, then execute the .exe installer file.

Step 9: Follow the on-screen prompts. You will be asked if you wish to upgrade your existing installation; select "yes".

Step 10: Perform the appropriate updates if you have ever made changes to either of the following up.time 4 files:

• uptime4d.lax: Past changes to this file (e.g., increasing the Java heap size) should also be made in the newly created up.time 5 uptimed.ax file.
• httpd.conf (Apache configuration): Past changes to this file (e.g., enabling SSH, or httpd performance variable tuning) should be replicated in the newly created httpd.conf file.

Step 11: Restart the "up.time Data Collector" service in the Services control panel.

Your upgrade is now complete.

Upgrading on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Solaris

Important: Be sure you have read the Before You Upgrade: Updating or Changing Your Monitoring Station OS section to find out if your monitoring station system requires an OS update or upgrade to run up.time 5.

Step 1: Before moving on please ensure you have the following:

• up.time 5 license key
• up.time 4 system and DataStore backup
• backup copy of uptime.conf
• backup copy of uptime4d.lax (if modified)
• backup copy of httpd.conf (if modified)

Step 2: Download the appropriate upgrade package from the Support Portal:

• Log in to Support Portal.
• Click 'Downloads' on the main or side navigation bar.
• Click 'Service Packs' on the download page.
• Click on the download link for the appropriate platform.

At the time of the up.time 5 release, the Red Hat and Solaris packages are named up.time-5.1.177-rhes4-x86-upgrade.bin.gz and up.time-5.1.177-solaris-sparc-32-upgrade.bin.gz, respectively. Note that you can download and upgrade to newer versions of up.time 5 when they are available.

Note: The correct file name must include the term "upgrade". If you use the full installation upgrade package, you will overwrite your up.time installation.

Step 3: Ensure you have logged out of up.time.

Step 4: Log in to your monitoring station via SSH/Telnet as the root user.

Step 5: Copy the upgrade installation file to your monitoring station, or mount it in a shared folder that can be accessed from the monitoring station.

Step 6: Stop the up.time Data Collector service by typing the following on the command line:

# /etc/init.d/uptime_core stop

Step 7: Place your up.time 5 license.dat file in your up.time installation directory, overwriting the existing file if it exists. (The default up.time 4 installation folder is /usr/local/uptime4.)

Step 8: Extract and execute the .gz installer file with the following commands on Red Hat and Solaris:

# gunzip up.time-5.1.177-rhes4-x86-upgrade.bin.gz
# chmod +x up.time-5.1.177-rhes4-x86-upgrade.bin
# ./up.time-5.1.177-rhes4-x86-upgrade.bin

# gunzip up.time-5.1.177-solaris-sparc-upgrade.bin.gz
# chmod +x up.time-5.1.177-solaris-sparc-upgrade.bin
# ./up.time-5.1.177-solaris-sparc-upgrade.bin

Step 9: Follow the on-screen prompts.

Step 10: Perform the appropriate updates if you have ever made changes to either of the following up.time 4 files:

• uptime4d.lax: Past changes to this file (e.g., increasing the Java heap size) should also be made in the newly created up.time 5 uptimed.ax file.
• httpd.conf (Apache configuration): Past changes to this file (e.g., enabling SSH, or httpd performance variable tuning) should be replicated in the newly created httpd.conf file.

Step 11: Restart the up.time Data Collector service by typing the following on the command line:

# /etc/init.d/uptime_core start

Your upgrade is now complete.

Upgrading on AIX

The AIX monitoring station platform is not supported in up.time 5. To upgrade to up.time 5 you will have to migrate your up.time installation to, then perform the actual upgrade on a supported platform. For more information, refer to the following articles:

Moving the up.time Monitoring Station

Supported Platform Changes in up.time 5.0

Upgrading on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Because of the significant platform support changes for up.time, no direct upgrade path is available for monitoring stations on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. SLES 9 support has been removed, but SLES 10 support has been added. To migrate your up.time installation to a version 10.3 SUSE Linux Enteprise Server, perform the following steps.

Step 1: Install SLES 10.3 on a new up.time monitoring station server.

Step 2: Download the full up.time 5 monitoring station package for SLES:

• Log in to Support Portal.
• Click 'Downloads' on the main or side navigation bar.
• Click the download link for the SLES platform.

At the time of the up.time 5 release, the package is named up.time-5.1.177-sles10-x86.bin.gz. Note that you can download and upgrade to newer versions of up.time 5 when they are available.

Step 3: Install full up.time 5 monitoring station package on a new SLES 10 monitoring station server.

Step 4: Establish your existing up.time 4 DataStore as your newly installed up.time 5 DataStore.

If you are using the default MySQL-based DataStore:

• Stop all up.time processes on both the up.time 4 monitoring station and the recently installed up.time 5 monitoring station. (Refer to the Starting and Stopping up.time article for more information.)
• Copy all contents of the [uptime_directory]/DataStore/data/ directory from the old monitoring station to the same location on the new monitoring station server.
• Restart the up.time processes on the new monitoring station. up.time will now attempt to update your DataStore to the up.time 5 format.

If you are using a Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle Database as the DataStore:

• Stop all up.time processes on both the up.time 4 monitoring station and the recently installed up.time 5 monitoring station. (Refer to the Starting and Stopping up.time article for more information.)
• Optionally move your Oracle- or SQL-Server-based DataStore to the new monitoring station server.
• Update the uptime.conf file on your new monitoring station so that the database connectivity settings point to your DataStore. If you have not moved your DataStore, the connection settings can be directly copied from your old monitoring station's uptime.conf file.
• Restart the new up.time 5 monitoring station's Data Collector and Web Server services (i.e., uptime_core and uptime_httpd).

Note: When up.time 5 is connected to your DataStore, do not restart the up.time 4 monitoring station's services. If two monitoring stations are concurrently accessing the same DataStore, the DataStore could be corrupted.

Step 5: Perform the appropriate updates if you have ever made changes to either of the following up.time 4 files:

• uptime4d.lax: Past changes to this file (e.g., increasing the Java heap size) should also be made in the newly created up.time 5 uptimed.ax file.
• httpd.conf (Apache configuration): Past changes to this file (e.g., enabling SSH, or httpd performance variable tuning) should be replicated in the newly created httpd.conf file.

Step 6: Now that you are successfully running a monitoring station on SLES 10, log in to the Support Portal to obtain an up.time 5 license for your new monitoring station as described in the Before You Upgrade: Updating Your License Key section.

Your upgrade is now complete.

Post-Upgrade Tasks

Verify that your upgrade was successful by testing your up.time configuration:

• Ensure the up.time monitoring station is available by logging in.
• Verify that your uptime.conf settings have been maintained.
• Verify that new performance data is being collected for your agents by generating a report or server monitor metrics graph.
• Verify your monitoring periods have been converted correctly.
• Run the Test Service Instance function for each custom service monitor.
• Run the Test Alert Profile function for any alert profile that uses an alert script.
• Run the Test Action Profile function for any action profile that uses an action script.
• Verify that scheduled reports are automatically created for the next generation interval by referring to the Report Log.

Note: If you have encountered any issues with archiving, you may require a patch that updates the archiving feature. Contact technical support for more information.

FAQ & Other Resources

• up.time 5 Release Notes
• FAQ
• Supported Platform Changes in up.time 5.0
• Supported Platform Changes in up.time 5.1
• Supported Monitoring Station Platforms in up.time 5.0
• Supported Monitoring Station Platforms in up.time 5.1