RE: Upgrade process

["Seeman, Corey Glenn" <CSeeman at UTNet dot UToledo dot Edu>]

Karen -- 

The upgrade process for moving to a new release is pretty easy.
Innovative has excellent upgrade documentation on CSDirect at the
following page (use your CSDirect password:
http://csdirect.iii.com/csd/release_notes/#Silver) 

While the process of upgrading can be a bit unnerving, there is great
support from the helpdesk.  I have only had a couple of problems with
upgrades over the years and they have been fixed by the helpdesk as a
top priority.  If something does happen, call the helpdesk and let them
know that you are doing an upgrade.  I doubt you will have a problem,
but anything could happen.

The trick about doing a smooth upgrade is have everything that you can
do ahead out time completed.  The Preparation Phase (see the
documentation) can be done two weeks before the upgrade.  I never do it
more than a day or two before an upgrade, but it is one less thing that
you have to worry about.  As for the actual upgrade, the time estimates
have been very close to the actual time it took us to upgrade, but these
changes vary as do our systems themselves.  If something is taking a
really long time, I think you should not hesitate to call the helpdesk
and have them take a look.  I can be a techno-condriac and always fear
the worst when doing upgrades on anything!  

If you can do all the preparation ahead of time, then your actual time
of the upgrade will be a bit less insofar as an interruption for
service.  I would definitely let all the constituents know, including
staff, the public, and others.  Staff need to know that they will be off
the system during the upgrade.  If there are unanticipated problems,
then let people know that it is not as smooth as you had hoped and to
ask for their patience.  If you are an Inn-Reach site, let your
colleagues know because they will not be able to get to your machine.
Another time saver is to make sure that your backup has run the day
before and is verified.  This can add to the process.  

When the upgrade is done, send a message to everyone at your library and
tell them to have fun.  With Silver being a great release, there are
lots of new toys, but new passwords that need to be setup.   One of the
biggest things that I ask people to check after ANY upgrade of any
system is for things that do not work as before.  It helps me identify
if this is a setup problem or maybe something that happened during the
upgrade.

For more information on Millennium Silver, see

Users Manual: http://csdirect.iii.com/manual/ - Silver Enhancements
(What's New) Page # 106085

Service Commitments - http://csdirect.iii.com/calls/services/

System Tune-Up  - http://csdirect.iii.com/documentation/tuneup.doc

My presentation on Millennium Silver enhancements:  
http://library.utoledo.edu/userhomes/cseeman/presentations/MIUG/MIUG_Mil
Siver.pdf 

You will be fine.  After a while, it may even become fun.  Well, maybe
not fun, but it will always be easy if you follow the documentation.  

-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org
[mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Karen Bracken
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 4:49 PM
To: innopac at innopacusers dot org
Subject: Upgrade process

IUGers:

We are a fairly new Innovative library system currently running 2002
phase 3.  We know we must upgrade to appreciate various enhancements and
fixes. We had planned to purchase a test server and have III load the
new version on the test server with our data to evaluate before going
"live on a new version".  That is until we got a sales quote... It was
cost prohibitive, so now we must come up with an upgrade plan to
identify any changes to the modules from the release notes and inform
the staff of these changes prior to the upgrade.  

We are quite concerned about applying the upgrade directly to our
production system, with the only safety net being an untested system
rebuild and tape restoration.  This is clearly not good practice for
software upgrades in the private sector, so we are wondering what the
"real life" experiences have been for those who did an in-place upgrade.
 Did anything go wrong?  Were the vendor-provided time estimates for
completion accurate?  Did everything come back up when they promised? 
Did you later notice any data corruption, or anything that "just didn't
look quite right"?

Would any of you be willing to share your upgrade
process/steps/gotcha's to a successful upgrade?  Our goal is to have a
successful upgrade with informed, prepared staff.   Any information you
can provide to make this happen would be great.


Karen Bracken
Data Technician, Riverside Public Library
(951) 826-5214
kbracken at riversideca dot gov 


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