Lotus Greenhouse takes a day off, comes back with Connections 3.0
by Volker Weber
We are very excited to be the first to bring to you the Gold version of 3.0 Lotus Connections. We are targeting to upgrade starting at 5:00 PM ET on Thursday November 11th and estimating to be back online Friday November 12th late afternoon. During this time Lotus Connections will not be available.
I know that IBM has limited resources. Could this also be done without service interruption?
Comments
Das hat nichts mit limitierten Ressourcen zu tun.
Einer der Hintergründe ist, dass es bei der neuen Version von Lotus Connections größere Änderungen in den Datenbankschemata gegeben hat und eine neue Version der DB2 Datenbank benutzt wird.
Bei EULUC durften wir auch die Beta von Connections 3.0 installieren und unser Datenbestand ist sicherlich nicht so groß wie der auf Greenhouse. Dennoch dauert die Migration von unseren 15 GB an Daten eine Weile.
Soweit ich weiß ist das aber nichts besonderes bei ähnlichen Systemen mit Datenbankbackend, z.B. Microsofts Sharepoint. Dort gibts auch Downtimes bei Upgrades.
Die Umstellung von Greenhouse auf 3.0 beta war im August. Ich glaube auch, dass Eure Ressourcen noch beschränkter sind als die von IBM, sprich DU musst das machen. :-)
Die Frage zielt eher darauf ab, ob man Connections so aufbauen kann, dass es keine Serviceunterbrechungen gibt, wenn die Software aktualisiert wird. Macht Facebook ja schließlich auch so, und die haben noch etwas mehr Betrieb. :-)
Hatte Facebook nicht vor kurzen einen Ausfall von mehreren Stunden? ;-)
Enterprises often love scheduled downtimes. It is a great way to show the importance of IT. If possible mention week-end or night activity so that every reader can confirm that he never wants to work in IT.
I don't have enough Connections experience but I would see this as a very difficult task that probably is not worth the hassle for a site like Greenhouse. Greenhouse is a try before you buy site but IBM has a great history for taking their websites on scheduled maintenance. They also do it for LDD or Passport Advantage from time to time.
Wolfram, da ist einer über das Kabel gestolpert. War wahrscheinlich die kleine Plastikzunge abgebrochen und da kann das mal rausrutschen. :-)
Downtime? Downtime? War das nicht ein größer Hit von Petula Clark in den frühen Siebzigern?
Yes, it could be done without downtime. Why do you ask?
Why? So I can ask the next question. How?
This is how we documented it for 2.5:
Good. Next question: why are you not following your own documentation?
I can't speak for the Greenhouse, but I suspect they are doing much more than a simple upgrade.. maybe upgrading hardware at the same time? or moving to a new data center? Perhaps installing some other stuff at the same time? Since this is just a demo server and not a mission critical server, it doesn't matter how it's done, right?
Now, if LotusLive where to have a full day of downtime, then that's another thing. That definitely wouldn't be acceptable.
So you can't speak for Greenhouse, you have a link to a documentation describing 2.5, this is an upgrade to 3.0, and you believe it can be done.
Claus, who has done a 3.0 upgrade, says no. Hmmm.
What are demo servers? They showcase possibilities.
According to the document Luis is linking to the "Minimum downtime" migration strategy requires to install the new Connections version onto n e w hardware !!
Interesting. That means, you will always have downtime.
Most Connections upgrades (patches, fixpacks etc) can be done with no downtime in a well planned, well executed architecture.
A full version upgrade either requires some downtime, or else additional hardware to allow side-by-side upgrade. Obviously the original hardware/virtual machines can be recycled.
