Creating a test bed

About this task

A test bed is a nonproduction area where you can test your changes. Upgrade the test bed before you upgrade your production databases.

If you plan to perform an in-place upgrade, that is specifying the same database as the source and target, you should test it first using the test bed. You can skip Step 2 in the following instructions with an in-place upgrade.

If you are performing a standard upgrade, not an in-place upgrade, the procedure for upgrading the test databases is almost identical to upgrading production databases.

To create a test bed based on your production databases:
  1. Back up your HCL Compass schema repository and user databases.
  2. Create new, empty vendor databases for each schema repository and user database, as described in Vendor database configuration. Create the new databases in a new test directory or on a test server. These new databases are referred to as the test bed in the rest of this section.

    Create empty databases only. Do not use the vendor database tools to move or copy the data. HCL Compass updates the data structure and moves it into the new databases as part of the upgrade process.

    Do not perform this step if you are performing an in-place upgrade or using Microsoft Access.

  3. If you use HCL Compass Web, shut down your Web server, stop any scheduled HCL Compass MultiSite synchronization jobs, and disconnect all users from HCL Compass by using one of these techniques:
    • Use the administrator tool to log users off the database, if the database vendor provides such a tool.
    • For Windows™, check the Task Manager Process List of each client and server computer. If any of the following processes is running, use the Task Manager to end it:
      • compass.exe
      • cqdesign.exe
  4. Copy your existing production schema repository and user databases to the test bed databases. Use the HCL Compass installutil utility with the options convertschemarepo and convertuserdb. For more information, see the "Reference pages" in the HCL Compass Online Help.

    The convert options with installutil cause HCL Compass to lock the original production databases. If you must unlock them, see the information about installutil unlockschemarepo and installutil unlockuserdb commands in the "Reference pages" topics of the HCL Compass Online Help.

  5. For each database in the test bed, create another new, empty vendor database. These databases, which are referred to as the test upgrade set in the rest of this section, are the databases that you upgrade to.