Solaris: Planning to migrate to a later version

Create a migration plan to migrate from your current version of IBM® WebSphere® MQ to a later version. You must back up your queue manager data before you migrate to the later version. You cannot revert a queue manager to the earlier version of the product once you start it on the later version.

Before you begin

If the queue manager is currently not on Version 7.1, see Table 1 in Where to find a topic about a specific migration path.

About this task

Use the following steps as a guide to creating a migration plan.

Procedure

  1. Review the WebSphere MQ system requirements for Version 7.5.
  2. Decide whether to run Version 7.1 and Version 7.5 on the same server.
  3. Review all the changes in WebSphere MQ that affect you.
  4. Review performance changes.
  5. Review the latest README file for the product you are working with.

    See WebSphere MQ and MQSeries product READMEs.

  6. Plan the sequence and timing of queue manager upgrades.
    • If the queue manager is part of a queue manager cluster, you must migrate the queue managers that are full repositories first.
    • If the queue manager is part of a high availability cluster, plan the migration to minimize downtime and maximize availability; see Migrate a queue manager in a high availability configuration.
  7. Plan to migrate your queue manager to Version 7.5.
    • See Solaris: Migrating a queue manager to a later version
    • Backing up queue manager data is part of the queue manager migration task.
    • An alternative approach to backing up queue manager data, is to install and configure a new server. Test Version 7.5 with a new queue manager on the new server. When you are ready to go into production on Version 7.5 copy the queue manager configuration and data, to the new server.
  8. Plan to update any manual or automated procedures you have written with changes to messages and codes.
  9. Plan to update applications that might be affected by changes you identified in Changes in IBM WebSphere MQ Version 7.5.
    • Consider whether the application must be able to run on both Version 7.1 and Version 7.5. You might be able to change the application to be compatible with both code levels. If you cannot, you can query the queue manager command level, and make the code conditional on the command level. Call MQINQ setting the MQIA_COMMAND_LEVEL selector.
  10. Decide on what regression tests to perform before putting the queue manager into production on Version 7.5.
    • Include the procedures and applications you identified in steps 6 and 7 in your regression tests.
  11. Plan to upgrade your WebSphere MQ MQI client installations to Version 7.5.
  12. Plan to upgrade your client and server applications to use new functions in Version 7.5.