High-level steps involved in the Fast Upgrade process

The Unica Fast upgrade process is introduced to help complete the upgrade process in a short time so that you encounter less downtime on your production environment. Also, Fast upgrade process will get executed on clean 12.1.0 environment, so users existing environment will remain untouched. Please note that the extension of script files on Windows operating system is ".bat", and on Unix operating systems, it is ".sh". When running scripts as suggested in this document, please choose the corresponding extension

Installing a clean 12.1.0 environment

Procedure

  1. You must set up a clean 12.1.0 environment with the same products installed as in the old version.
  2. You can setup a clean 12.1.0 environment either on the same hardware or a different hardware. We recommend that you setup a clean 12.1.0 environment on a different hardware. If installed on the same hardware you must configure the JVM memory options for the new environment and keep sufficient disk space, memory and CPU for the older versions as well as for the 12.1.0 version.
  3. A clean 12.1.0 environment installation should be done with the stack combination used in the old version. For example, if your existing 8.6 version is installed on the RHEL operating system with the DB2 database, then a clean 12.1.0 should be installed on same operating system flavor and same database vendor. But, note that you must use the supported third party software - operating systems, application servers, database, and so on versions that 12.1.0 supports.
  4. Ensure that the 12.1.0 application is up and running.

Migrating the system database

About this task

The steps underneath are database specific, you may consult your DBA to complete them:

Procedure

  1. You must take a backup of the system tables from the old version.
  2. You must also take a backup of the system tables from the 12.1.0 version.
  3. Stop the clean installed 12.1.0 application.
  4. Clean up the system tables of the 12.1.0 clean applications. This involves deleting all the tables, constraints, indexes, and so on from the system tables. Alternatively, you can create new database schemas to migrate system data from the old version to the 12.1.0 version.
  5. Restore the database backup from the older version system tables to the 12.1.0 application system tables for all the required products into the respective database schema.

Executing the Fast Upgrade

Procedure

  1. You must execute the Unica Platform upgrade process first. In case Unica Campaign is part of the installed suite then execute the Fast Upgrade for Unica Campaign. Only after that execute the other fast upgrades.
  2. Contact Technical Support if you encounter errors in the Fast Upgrade process.

Post Fast Upgrade

Procedure

  1. After completing the Fast Upgrade, you must execute the configuration steps for every product. Refer to the respective product section in this guide for details.
  2. Perform a UAT on the upgraded environment. The old version can be shutdown once the UAT passes and the new 12.1.0 environment can then be used in production.