Upgrading Notification Servers in a hierarchy
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Upgrading Notification Servers in a hierarchy

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Article ID: 179660

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Updated On:

Products

IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Question
What is the best way to upgrade Notification Servers in a hierarchy?

Resolution

Answer
This document outlines the best practices for the following scenario:

You have a group of Notification Servers joined in a hierarchy and you wish to upgrade them to a higher service pack of Symantec Management Platform (SMP or also known as Notification Server).


Upgrade hierarchy nodes from the bottom up

The supported method is to upgrade the Notification Servers in the hierarchy from the bottom up (however, it is not crucial if you are upgrading all your servers at the same time since Replication activities needs to be turned off anyway between parent and child servers). This means that you should upgrade the lowest child node first and then work your way up, ensuring that each child Notification Server is upgraded to a higher version before its parent. You do not need to break any hierarchy relationships in the process.

Note: You should not keep different versions of Notification Server in a Hierarchy permanently. After you have upgraded the child Notification Servers, you should upgrade the parent Notification Servers as soon as possible to avoid any potential issues or conflicts that may arise.

Ensure that no replication jobs are currently running

You need to ensure that there are no replication jobs currently running at the time that you choose to upgrade each Notification Server. To check this, you can run the Current Replication Activity report (under Reports>Notification Server Management>Server>Replication) for the Notification Server that you are upgrading. The report will show results only if a replication job is currently in progress.

Disable hierarchy replication on all adjacent nodes

To prevent any replication data from being sent to a Notification Server while it is mid-way through an upgrade, we recommend that you disable hierarchy replication on each adjacent hierarchy node.

You need to disable replication on the local server that you are about to upgrade, and also on any parent and child Notification Servers (those that are directly above or below the local server). This prevents the local server from carrying out any of its usual replication jobs.

To disable hierarchy replication on a hierarchy node:

  1. On the Notification Server, open the Symantec Management Console.
  2. In the Settings menu, click Notification Server > Hierarchy.
  3. On the Hierarchy Management page, on the Topology tab, in the Diagram view, right-click on the local server node.
  4. On the context menu, click Disable Replication.

Re-enable hierarchy replication after upgrade is complete

When the Notification Server upgrade has completed, you need to enable hierarchy replication again. To do this, repeat the above procedure and select Enable Replication from the context menu. Replication will resume as normal.