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Domino Diva

An iSeries take on Domino

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Misunderstood multi-versioning

Kim Greene  

 In a conversation with a new customer this afternoon, I heard a common theme come through; multi-versioning is not well understood.  I have had similar conversations with a number of customers over the past few years. The net is that customers do not understand what multi-versioning is and how it can benefit their Domino installations.

 

Domino on the System i (iSeries, AS/400) has had multi-versioning since releases 6.0.3 and 6.5.0.  This support allows more than one version of Lotus Domino to be installed and running on your iSeries at the same time.  For example, a single iSeries box or iSeries LPAR could have releases 6.5.6, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, and 8.0.1 installed and running. The main areas of confusion I have found related to this support in my conversations with customers are related to these three areas:

 

1) how it affects the install process

2) how servers are upgraded to the new release after the new code installation

3) do all servers have to be upgraded at the same time

 

How it affects the install process

I like to use multi-versioning support to, at a minimum, install the new version of Lotus Domino.  With multi-versioning support, I can leave production servers active while installing the new version.  This saves about 1/2 hour of downtime for the customer.  It also allows the customer the flexibility of installing the new code version during production hours, so they are ready to update their Domino servers whenever is convenient for them. 

 

How do servers get updated after the installation

There is an UPDDOMSVR (Update Domino Server) command that allows you to specify which server you want to take to the new release level.  When you are ready to update a Domino server, simply end the server and issue the UPDDOMSVR command.  The parameters to the command are the name of the Domino server and the release level you would like to upgrade the server to.  It really is that simple.

 

Do all servers have to be upgraded

This is a very simple answer, no.  You can pick and choose which servers to upgrade.  For example, if a customer has three servers sitting at releast 6.5.6 and they want to upgrade one of the servers to release 7.0.3, they have that flexibility.  Better yet, if a customer wants to check out the new release 8.0.1 that came out yesterday, then can simply install the new code release, configure a test server with this new code release, while leaving their existing servers untouched.

 

Multi-versioning is really that simple!

Comments

1 Luis Guirigay      Permalink Congratulations on your new blog..

I like the name...

2 Kim Greene      Permalink Ok, Roland, I'm game. I have been thinking about creating a post about NSFDB2 support related to System i, so now I have the perfect opportunity. It may end up being more than one post, depending on how I decide to tackle the issue. Stay tuned.

3 Roland Reddekop      Permalink Thanks dynamic duo, Kim & Chris for clearing that up.


If you're looking for other topics to tackle, I'd be interested in your thought on workarounds for achieving NSFDB2 on System i via data federation and a second Domino server that is supported for NSFDB2 (Windows, Linux, AIX).
Its hard to get clear info from IBM on how to set this up and how much it costs for the federation.
Meanwhile I am limited to using DEC and LCLSX because management doesn't see the value in LEI.

4 Kim Greene      Permalink Great post Roland, and this brings up another misunderstanding about multi-versioning. Multi-versioning is for installing a new release of Domino. For example, if you are at 7.0.2 and want to upgrade to 7.0.3, that is where multi-versioning comes in.

Multi-versioning does not apply to applying fix packs, that is a totally separate process. Multi-versioning ONLY applies to upgrades.

5 Chris Whisonant      Permalink Roland, you do need to stop all servers running the version that is receiving the fixpack. Multi-versioning is a wonderful option, but it can be confusing because admins may remember that in the past all servers had to be ended before upgrading.

Great post Kim!

6 Roland Reddekop      Permalink Thanks for this. Unfortunately, I've seen some confusion in the readmes that come with new releases that mention stopping the Domino servers, all of them before installation.

It might be good if you clarify if this server-up install applies when upgrading to a fixpack release? On a System i (or iSeries as you like to call it :-) these are usually PTF's. The readmes say to stop the servers --all of them. So for example, if you have a server on 7.0.2 FP1 and you want to take it to 7.0.2 FP2, I don't think the server-up install is actually an option because the PTF will modify the program directory of the servers that are running. However, if I have servers on 7.0.2 FP2 I could install 8.0.1 because that gets written to a new program directory.

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