Windows and SQL in-place upgrade for FNMS 2022 R1

[VitorSi]

Hi,

My customer is running FNMS 2022 R1 on Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2012 SP4. Due to EOL it is required to upgrade those to newer versions.

There are more than 10 Beacons and 2 SQL Servers so an in-place upgrade is being considered as the action plan.
What is the supported process to bring the servers to newer versions, both Windows and SQL?
Regards.

[durgeshsingh · Accepted solution]

Hi

IN place upgrade will not help in flexera Db & beacon. It will break your configuration. So best advice to create a new VM of server & restore DB from latest backup. Beacon can fresh install as it will not take much time.

[durgeshsingh · Accepted solution]

Hi

IN place upgrade will not help in flexera Db & beacon. It will break your configuration. So best advice to create a new VM of server & restore DB from latest backup. Beacon can fresh install as it will not take much time.

[MWuendisch]

Hi Chris, Hi durgeshsingh, we plan to use a new SQL Server version also with new SQl Server names, is it enough to run the Config.ps1 after backup and restore the databases to introduce the new SQL Server  names to the FNMS application server? M.

[ChrisG]

Only running Config.ps1 is unlikely to be sufficient to change all references to the SQL Server instance name. You will also likely find references in the dbo.ComplianceConnection table in the compliance database that need to be updated, and also possibly connection details in adapters that you have configured.

[ChrisG]

In my experience, doing an in-place upgrade of Windows is a fragile process and likely to lead to a range of difficult-to-resolve problems. So I would recommend doing a clean OS install and then installing FlexNet Manager Suite on that.

I don't think an in-place upgrade of SQL Server would likely be as difficult though, so that's probably OK to do.

[VitorSi]

Thank you all for your suggestions and I completely agree with them.

Yet what is the supported way? Because I was not able to find any doc with a statement and need to provide a documented and supported process to customer.

Thanks.

[MWuendisch]

Did you find an answer oder best practice doc?

[steve_young · Accepted solution]

Been through this a couple of times and it is easier to just stand up a new SQL environment. Then you can either backup the databases and restore them to the new SQL server, or use MS Data Migration Assistant to migrate all the SQL databases and logins etc.
You could run compatibility assessments from this MS tool as well if you wanted to. 

Then just reinstall the FNMS server roles on your new servers and point them at the databases hosted on your new SQL environment.