During the life of your business application, you may find it necessary to upgrade the end-user application to address changing business needs. The upgrade of the end-user application to a new version can be performed either:
To install the end-user application at the same time you install DB2, follow the instructions described in either Performing a Mass Installation or Mass Copy.
The sections that follow describe how to install a new version of the end-user application without re-installing DB2.
When the new version of the application is available for deployment to your satellites, you must perform several tasks before deploying the new version.
A new version of an end-user application often requires changes to the existing database definition. In addition to installing the new application code, you can use the installation application to perform any database definition migration and data migration that you require to support the new application. An alternative that you can also use is to drop the existing database, create a new database, and reload the required data. If the data for the initial deployment was loaded from information stored in a corporate database, you can use replication to reload the data. Use the same technique to load the data on the satellite as you used for the initial deployment.
When the new version of the application is installed on the satellite, you will not want it to execute the group batches of the old application version. If the satellite executes the batches for the previous application version, errors will likely occur. When your installation application installs the new version of the end-user application on the satellite, it should also update the application version that is used by the satellite for the purpose of synchronizing. You can specify the new application version by using either the db2sync -s command or the db2SetSyncSession API. For more information about the db2sync command, see db2sync - Start DB2 Synchronizer. For more information about the db2SetSyncSession API, see Setting the Application Version on the Satellite.
If the update of application version is not performed before the satellite next synchronizes, the satellite will upload its old application version to the DB2 control server, and any unexecuted batch steps for this application version will be sent to the satellite and executed. If any script in the group batches is incompatible with the new database definition, the results of the execution are unpredictable. For this reason, you must ensure that the application version is updated on the satellite before the end user initiates a synchronization session. Using the methods described above, reset the application version when you install the new version of the application.
You must set up information about the group's new application version on the DB2 control server. Use the Satellite Administration Center to:
For the steps that you use to create the application version, see Creating an Application Version.
Before you deploy the new version of the application, we recommend that you create a test system that is at the same level as the existing production satellites. You can use this system to verify that the installation of the new version of the application provides the correct results, and that the setup, update and cleanup batches produce the expected database definition and data for the end-user application. To create a test system, you can:
This process will bring the test system up to the level of the production systems that are running the previous application version.
See Testing Group Batches for information about performing these tasks.
Repeat the process of synchronizing, checking results, and debugging the group batches until the satellite can synchronize without errors. The process should be able to set up the test satellite correctly before you deploy your production satellites.
When you are ready to begin deploying the production satellites, promote the setup, update and cleanup batches to the production level. For more information on performing this task, see Promoting a Group Batch to Production.
When you use the procedure described above and can build a test system that runs without errors, you should retain it, and use it as your model office for the new application version. The system is already upgraded with the new version of the end-user application, and has already executed the group batches that you promoted to production.
Install the new application version on the production satellites, using the process and media that you tested with the test system. Using the same process should set the new application version on each satellite.
The next time that the production satellite synchronizes, it will upload its new application version to the DB2 control server, and download the batches for this new application version. The satellite will execute the batches, and upload the results of the synchronization to the DB2 control server.
You can use the satellite details view in the Satellite Administration Center to determine which application version a satellite is running. You can filter on the Application version column to determine which satellites have installed the new version, and which satellites are not yet upgraded.
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