Things to Know Before You Install/Upgrade IT Management Suite 8.6

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

What to do before a new install of IT Management Suite (ITMS) 8.6.

What to do before upgrading an existing version of ITMS to ITMS 8.6.

Environment

ITMS 8.6

Resolution

1. Read the ITMS 8.5 documentation. Please visit the main ITMS landing page.

2. During the course of your upgrade, you may determine that you need to upgrade your Windows Server Operating System. ITMS does not support an in-place upgrade of the Windows Server Operating System. Please see step six (6) below.

3. Check the following document to see which upgrade path you should follow. --> Supported upgrade paths for IT Management Suite. 

   1. If you are running 8.5 but not 8.5 RU4, please update to 8.5 RU4 using the following sections in order  --> ITMS 8 5 RU4 Release Notes
      1. System requirements and supported platforms
      2. General installation and upgrade information
      3. Performing post-installation tasks for Deployment Solution (if Applicable)
   2. If you are running 8.1 but not 8.1 RU7, please update to 8.1 RU7 using the following sections in order  --> ITMS 8 1 RU7 Release Notes
      1. System requirements and supported platforms
      2. General installation and upgrade information
      3. Performing post-installation tasks for Deployment Solution (if Applicable)
         
         
4. To determine what version of IT Management Suite (ITMS) you are running, do the following:
   1. In the Symantec Management Console (SMC), go to Help | About Symantec Management Console
   2. In the Symantec Management Agent (SMA), go to Help | About
   3. Compare the version numbers with the charts in the appropriate document below.

      1. What are the released ITMS 8.1 Agent or Plug-in versions and build numbers?

      2. What are the released ITMS 8.5 Agent or Plug-in versions and build numbers?

5. Verify that your systems meet hardware recommendations. --> Chapter 4 of ITMS Planning and Implementation Guide.

6. Verify that your ITMS environment is running on supported Server OSs, IIS, and SQL. --> ITMS Platform Support Matrix (or the PDF version)

7. If you find after reviewing the documents in Steps 2 and 3 above that you need to upgrade your server's hardware or OS, please read the following documentation:

   Steps for Upgrading/Migrating to 8.5  Same steps are used to upgrade to 8.6.
   
   OR
   
   Migrating a stand-alone ITMS 8.1 RU7 instance to latest ITMS version using new hardware and a new host name for Notification Server
   
   
   

8. Best Practice calls for testing the install/upgrade in a lab environment before doing the install/upgrade in the production environment.

9. Make a backup of the Notification server, Site servers (task and package), Gateway servers, and SQL servers and SQL databases.

10. Make a backup of (export) your Certificates. Also, please refer to other items considered important to backup: ITMS Disaster Recovery "ITMS Disaster Recovery White Paper"

11. Follow the steps in this document to perform the install or upgrade (instructions are identical to 8.6 as they were for 8.5) --> ITMS Suite 8.5 Installation and Upgrade Guide

    1. Prerequisites for installing ITMS 8.6
    2. ITMS 8.6 solutions also require the following additional third-party software
    3. Installing the IT Management Suite OR Upgrading to IT Management Suite 8.6