Best Practices Guide prior to Release Automation upgrade
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Best Practices Guide prior to Release Automation upgrade

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Article ID: 40617

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Updated On:

Products

CA Release Automation - Release Operations Center (Nolio) CA Release Automation - DataManagement Server (Nolio)

Issue/Introduction

Consideration and best practice recommendation for Release Automation upgrade



Release Automation is configured with various integration configurations and there are some guidelines before upgrading. The guidelines will assist for successful upgrade.

Glossary

  • DMS a.k.a NAC: Data Management Server /Nolio Automation Center

  • ES a.k.a NES: Execution Server / Nolio Execution Server

  • Agents

Environment

Release Automation: 6.4, 6.5, 6.6 and higher

Resolution

Upgrade Checklist



  • Make sure to keep the service account username and password detail running DMS and ES services handy before running upgrade.
  • Before upgrade, please make sure you make a backup of files in <InstallRootDir>/conf  and cacerts file in <InstallRootDir>/jre/lib/security.
  • Make sure the user whose account is used for upgrade has adequate permissions on DMS and ES and install directory.
  • Make sure there are no active jobs or hanged jobs on DMS, make sure to stop all of them before upgrade, also make sure there are no schedule jobs and Test run running. Please see Appendix A on how to do it.
  •  In High Availability setup make sure that when upgrade is running neither Primary/Secondary DMS should be processing any request. Both the primary and secondary server require the patch in specific order. During patch installation, there are no database updates other than the product version. Only the Management Server receives updates to required files.
    • Stop the secondary Management Server
    • Apply cumulative patch on the Primary Management Server. The patch installation stops the service, updates the required files and restart the services.
    • Verify that the primary Management Server is available and working properly. 
    • Apply the cumulative patch on secondary Management Server. The patch installation stops the service, updates the required files and restart the services.



Note: There can be various ways in which HA on DMS is set up - it may be via Load balancers, VIP, etc. important thing to remember is that during upgrade, the primary DMS will go down for some time during restart, make sure that the secondary should not become primary and try to communicate with DB, as it may result in DB tables getting locked and upgrade failures. So make sure that secondary Management Server is stopped during upgrade process.



  • Create back of necessary certificates like of LDAP certificates.

Additional Information

Appendix A

Seeking Active Run: There are four possible executing objects in the systems

  1. Releases

  2. Processes

  3. Scheduled Jobs

  4. Test Run

  •  Checking Active Releases
  1. Navigate to JMX URL http://<DMS-Hostname/IP>:20203/mbean?objectname=releasecenter%3Atype%3DInfo and enter JMX login details.
  2. Invoke method getAllActiveReleases it will list down all active releases. The desired result expected before any upgrade/maintenance on Server is to have “Result value: No active releases found”.
  3. If there are no active releases you can skip this process. In case you have some releases, either stop them via Release Operation Center UI or you can invoke method removeRelease passing the release-id from URL in step-1.
  • Checking Active Processes
  1. Navigate to JMX URL http://<DMS-Hostname/IP>:20203/mbean?objectname=noliocenter%3Atype%3Dinfo and enter JMX login details.
  2. Invoke method listActiveRuns it will list down all active process runs. The desired result expected before any upgrade/maintenance on Server is to have “Result value:”.
  3. If there are no active run you can skip this process. In case you have some, you can either remove them all by invoking method removeAllActiveRuns or you can remove them in one-by-one by invoking removeProcessRuns passing process-id’s. These both methods can be accessed navigating to URL in step 1.
  • Checking Scheduled Jobs
  1. Navigate to JMX URL http://<DMS-Hostname/IP>:20203/mbean?objectname=noliocenter%3Atype%3Dinfo and enter JMX login details.
  2. Invoke method listAllScheduledJobs it will list down all scheduled jobs. The desired result expected before any upgrade/maintenance on Server is to have "Result value: No scheduled jobs", but it may not be possible. If there are any scheduled jobs you will get list of jobs with three column information  i.e. ID, NAME,ENABLED. You can either disable these schedules from RA in case if scheduled jobs are conflicting with maintenance window(Management Server upgrade time frame)
  3. If you want to remove scheduled job which you think will fall under method removeScheduledJobs passing scheduled-id captured in step 2. This methods can be accessed navigating to URL in step 1.
  •  Removing Test Runs
  1. Navigate to JMX URL http://<DMS-Hostname/IP>:20203/mbean?objectname=noliocenter%3Atype%3Dinfo and enter JMX login details.
  2. Invoke method removeTestRuns it will remove any test runs been there in system. Test runs are one which we invoke by executing test on process/actions.
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