Consider the following best practices when planning your client upgrade.
In general, upgrade clients after you upgrade your DB2 servers is the traditional approach. Supported pre-DB2 Version 10.5 clients can connect to DB2 Version 10.5 servers. However, the functionality introduced in releases after the pre-DB2 Version 10.5 client release is not available. If you plan to use this functionality in your applications, upgrade your clients to DB2 Version 10.5 or install new DB2 Version 10.5 client copies.
Upgrading clients in a test environment allows you to determine if the upgrade can be successful and to address any problems that might occurred during the upgrade process. You can also test your database applications and determine if you must upgrade them to run successfully in DB2 Version 10.5.
If you are upgrading your clients first, upgrading clients in a test environment allows you to determine and manage any incompatibilities between releases to successfully run your applications on pre-DB2 Version 10.5 servers using DB2 Version 10.5 clients
If you have software that requires a pre-DB2 Version 10.5 client, install the DB2 Version 10.5 client as a new copy and keep your existing client copy to satisfy the software requirement. Then create a DB2 Version 10.5 client instance and keep your existing client instance with its configuration. You can select the option to create a new client instance during the installation, or you can manually create the client instance after installation.
Perform the pre-upgrade and post-upgrade tasks for clients to ensure a successful upgrade.