Preparing the existing system

Before upgrading any system, you must perform the following steps:

Putting the system in a quiescent state

Before you upgrade your system, you must make sure it is in a quiescent state. This means that all in-progress events are completed and all in-doubt transactions are resolved before backing up the environment and performing the upgrade procedure.

The following steps describe how to put the system in a quiescent state:

  1. Resubmit failed events or discard the events (this step is optional).
  2. Stop all connectors from polling the event tables by setting the connector PollFrequency property to No and restarting the connector.
  3. Let all events run through the system, including all in-process events. All in-doubt transactions must be resolved.
  4. Clear the queues by removing any old events from the queues.
    Note:
    Perform step 4 only if you are not processing your failed events and choose to resubmit the events from the application. Otherwise, the queues should be empty, but double-check to be sure.

See the System Administration Guide for more information about how to stop a running system gracefully.

Backing up the system

Backing up the system allows you to recover any files that might be overwritten inadvertently during the installation of the new version. Before performing the upgrade procedure, back up both static data and dynamic data (changeable data that you back up on a regular basis, regardless of upgrades). For examples of static and dynamic data, see Table 3.

To back up the system, do the following:

Table 3 summarizes how to back up the different components.

Table 3. Backup methods for data
Type of data Backup method
Static data
Repository Use the repos_copy utility to save some or all of the customized system components. For more information, see the description of how to back up components in the System Administration Guide.
Custom map Java class files (.class) To include these files in your system backup, make sure the following directory is in your system backup:
ProductDir\DLMs
Custom connectors Include the following directory in your system backup: ProductDir\connectors\connector_name, where "connector_name" is the name of the custom connector.
Customized startup scripts If you have customized any startup scripts, make sure that they are included in your system backup.
ICS Express configuration file (InterchangeSystem.cfg) Include in your system backup the ICS Express configuration file, which resides in the ProductDir directory.
Dynamic data
Cross-reference, failed events, and relationship tables Use the database backup utility for the database. For more information, see the description of how to back up system components in the System Administration Guide.
Connector event archive tables Use the database backup utility for the database that contains these tables.
Log files Include the following directory in your system backup:
ProductDir\log

Shutting down the system

After backups are complete, you can shut down the system as follows:

  1. Shut down InterChange Server Express and its related components.
  2. Shut down the database server.
  3. Shut down WebSphere MQ.

For more information on system shutdown, see the System Administration Guide.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2004, 2005