Choose an upgrade strategy

By upgrading all servers and clients at the same time, you can avoid problems that result from supporting software components from different releases. All features in the new version are available immediately. However, the Rational ClearQuest environment is not available until these tasks are complete:

• All clients and servers are upgraded
• All changes are made to the user databases and schema repositories
• All packages are upgraded
• All other DevOps products are reinstalled.

Any unforeseen problems must be resolved before the environment can be made available to users.

When you upgrade in phases, the Rational ClearQuest environment is down for several short periods and problems are addressed in each phase. This strategy reduces the risk of excessive downtime for the entire environment as a result of unforeseen problems during the upgrade process.

Planning considerations

• Identify which Rational ClearQuest servers and clients to upgrade first and which to upgrade later. For example, you might want to upgrade the clients and servers for one project team before another team. If some people belong to both project teams, consider whether upgrading their clients affects their ability to work with the user databases for the second project.
• In the first phase of the process, upgrade any client, server, and vendor database software versions that do no meet the system requirements for the new Rational ClearQuest version.
• If you plan to raise the feature level, do not raise it during a phased upgrade. Because mismatched feature levels can cause compatibility problems, raise the feature level only after you upgrade all Rational ClearQuest clients and servers.
• If you have a MultiSite configuration and want complete bidirectional replication between all sites, upgrade all Rational ClearQuest MultiSite synchronization servers and DevOps Shipping Servers at the same time. You can upgrade MultiSite environments in phases if the environment can tolerate periods of unidirectional replication. During these periods, some sites do not receive updates from other sites. If you upgrade synchronization and shipping servers in phases, plan carefully to avoid problems that result from systems and data that are not synchronized.