General Guidance for an Upgrade to IT Management Suite 8.7.x or 8.8.x

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Example Upgrade Scenario:

You are considering upgrading from ITMS 8.7.2 Release to:

1. ITMS 8.7.3 or
2. ITMS 8.8

Environment

ITMS 8.7.3, 8.8

Resolution

Disclaimer:
The following is provided as a general guidance. It is not intended to provide every single detail on what to consider (like if CEM (Cloud-enabled Management) is in use, custom changes in Security or file access, etc)  since each environment is different. For complex implementations, if the Upgrade knowledge/experience is minimal, you may want to consider contacting Broadcom Professional Services for assistance.

Note: Broadcom Support team doesn’t conduct Upgrades or join during the Upgrade process; However, we are more than happy to troubleshoot any upgrade failures or port-upgrade concerns. Just open a Support case to receive further assistance.

General recommendations:

1. Remember, Best Practice calls for testing the install/upgrade in a lab environment before doing the install/upgrade in the production environment.
2. Make a backup of the SMP server, Site servers (task and package), Gateway servers, SQL servers, and SQL databases. Consider having a most recent backup/snapshot of the SMP Server and database in case of a big failure during the upgrade so you can rollback if needed. 
3. Make a backup of (export) your Certificates. Also, please refer to other items considered important to backup: ITMS Disaster Recovery
4. Please visit the main ITMS landing page.  This will have sections for the LATEST RELEASE of ITMS including: Release Notes, Platform OS Support, Getting Started, Administration, etc.  Become familiar with this link.
5. Check the following document to see which upgrade path you should follow: ITMS 8.7.3 General Installation and Upgrade Information and ITMS 8.8 General Installation and Upgrade Information
6. Verify that your systems still meet the minimal  hardware recommendations: IT Management Planning Considerations and Recommended IT Management Suite Hardware
7. Verify that your ITMS environment is running on supported Server OSs, IIS, .NET, and SQL: ITMS Platform Support Matrix

Note: In case that your hardware is too old or no longer supported by the ITMS version you are upgrading to, refer to the following documentation for Migration to a new server:

• Migration Scenarios and Troubleshooting
• Migrating to a New SMP Server While Keeping the Same Hostname and IP Address
• Migrating a Stand-Alone ITMS 8.5 RU4 Instance to the Latest ITMS Version
• Migrating a Cloud-Enabled Management Machine to a New SMP Server
• How to Move or Migrate Management Agents from One Notification Server to Another
• How To Re-Import Image Files After Migrating To A New SMP Server
• Moving an Existing CMDB from One SQL Server to a New SQL Server
• Validating Site Servers After an OS Upgrade
• How to Replace a Site Server with New Hardware

1. Review Release Notes from the version you are upgrading to:
   
        ITMS 8.7.3 Release Notes
        ITMS 8.8 Release Notes
   
   
2. Be aware as well of current pointfixes for the version you are upgrading to:
   
        For ITMS 8.7.3, refer to KB article CUMULATIVE POST ITMS 8.7.3 POINT FIXES
        For ITMS 8.8 RTM (GA), refer to to KB article CUMULATIVE POST ITMS 8.8 RTM (GA) POINT FIXES
   
   
3. During the course of your upgrade, you may determine that you need to upgrade your Windows Server Operating System. Refer toKB article In-Place Operating System Upgrades
4. Upgrading the SPM Server is usually the first portion to work on. We use Symantec Installation Manager to conduct the initial upgrade steps in KB article Upgrading to a Higher Version of Symantec Product Using the Symantec Installation Manager
5. Review and be familiar with the following Best Practices for Upgrading to IT Management Suite and Upgrading IT Management Suite
6. After the SMP Server has been upgraded, upgrading the Site Servers is the most common next step Upgrading Site Servers
7. After the Site Servers have been upgraded, then move to the rest of your managed client or server machines as explained in Upgrading Symantec Management Agent
8. And the corresponding Solution plug-ins information is listed in Using the Unified Windows Agent Plug-in Rollout Policy

Some other KB articles that could help you to work on upgrading the Symantec Management Agent and its plug-ins are:

• Display all the Agent plug-in policies in one single place
• Report that shows what plug-ins need to be upgraded
• Reporting all installed agents and versions per managed computer
• Where can I check the agent upgrade status in the Symantec Management Console?
• Best Practice: How to remediate systems where an Agent Plugin is not upgrading on some systems

The main idea is that after the SMP Server has been upgraded first, then you then proceed to upgrade the Site Servers. After that, then upgrade the client machines. 

Make sure the Site Servers have a supported version of .NET.  As well, during the upgrade on the SMP Server and Site Servers / client machines, make sure the proper UAC levels are set (reduce it to avoid conflicts on getting components installed because UAC is blocking the process) as well stop any anti-virus and real-time scanners that could block MSIs, EXE or any other assemblies that needs to be upgraded and executed.