Upgrading your agents

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Periodically, new archive files that contain upgraded monitoring agents are available for download. Archive files are available from IBM® Passport Advantage®.

Before you begin

For the following agents, an agent-specific task must be completed before you complete the upgrade procedure:
  • For the agents on AIX, if you are running as a non-root user, you must clear one of the libraries from memory before you start the installation procedure to upgrade the agent. Follow the instructions in Agents on AIX: Stopping the agent and running slibclean before you upgrade.
  • For the HMC Base agent on AIX, if you are upgrading the agent as a non-root user, you must first stop the HMC Base agent and clear dependent libraries from cache. Follow the instructions in HMC Base agent on AIX: Stopping the agent as a non-root user and running slibclean before you upgrade
  • For the Microsoft .NET agent, you must remove the data collector from your .NET applications before you upgrade the agent. Follow the instructions in Microsoft .NET agent: Removing the .NET data collector before you upgrade.
  • For the Node.js agent, you must remove the data collector plug-ins from your Node.js applications before you upgrade the agent. Follow the instructions in Node.js agent: Removing the data collector plug-ins before you upgrade.
  • For the Ruby agent, you must remove the data collector from your Ruby applications before you upgrade the agent. Follow the instructions in Ruby agent: Removing the data collector plug-ins before you upgrade.
  • For the HTTP Server agent, you must stop the HTTP server before you upgrade the agent.
  • For the WebSphere® MQ agent, if you enabled transaction tracking for the agent in the previous release, you must stop the agent instance before you upgrade the agent.
  • For the SAP NetWeaver Java™ Stack agent, if you are upgrading from V8.1.3.2 to V8.1.4 then stop all the SAP NetWeaver Java Stack instances that are configured with the data collector before you upgrade the agent.
  • For the Skype for Business Server agent, if you are upgrading from the older version to V8.1.4.0.2 then at the agent side, the agent name changes to Skype for Business Server. Also, after the support upgrade through SDA, you need to restart the APMUI service to reflect the new agent name (Skype for Business Server) at the MIN Server side or else you will see the old agent name (MS Lync Server) on the MIN Server dashboard.
  • For Tomcat agent, if you want to upgrade TEMA core framework on Windows, you must stop both agent and server. Follow the instructions in Tomcat agent: Upgrading the TEMA Core Framework on Windows

About this task

If a new version of the agent is available, running the installation script automatically upgrades the agent. If the agent does not have a newer version available, a message is displayed explaining that the agent is already installed; your installed agent is not affected.

To install an upgraded agent, use the following procedures:

Procedure

Results

The agent is upgraded to the latest version. If a newer version of the monitoring agent is not available, a message is displayed explaining that the agent is already installed; your installed agent is not affected.

What to do next

After an upgrade of a Windows agent, you must restart any agent that is not both automatically configured and started by the Windows Installer. Run the following command to check the agent status:
./name-agent.bat status
Use one of the following methods to start the agent:
  • Click Start > All Programs > IBM Monitoring agents > IBM Performance Management. Right-click on an agent and click Start.
  • Run the following command:
    ./name-agent.bat start
For information about the monitoring agent commands, including the name to use, how to check agent status, and more, see Using agent commands. For information about which agents are started automatically and manually, see Agent and data collector deployment
  • For the Hadoop agent, complete the following steps after you upgrade from the socket - based agent (8.1.2, Fix Pack 2, or earlier) to the REST API - based agent (8.1.3, or later):
    1. To prevent generation of unnecessary logs, remove the 17-line code from the hadoop-metrics2.properties files of all Hadoop nodes.
    2. Stop the Hadoop services.
    3. Delete the Plugin.jar file that was copied from the agent installer from all nodes in the Hadoop cluster.
    4. Start the Hadoop services.
    For information about the 17-line code and the Plugin.jar file, see Configuring Hadoop nodes.
  • For the HMC Base agent, after you upgrade the agent from version 6.2.2.6 to 6.2.2.7, you must configure the agent again and restart the agent. For instructions, see Configuring HMC Base monitoring.
  • For the HTTP Server agent, if you upgrade the agent from a version that is earlier than 1.0.0.4 to 1.0.0.4 or later, you must also update the .conf file, which is used by the HTTP Server, to replace the previous data collector configuration file with the newly generated file. You must also add the new agent instance to the console. For instructions, see Configuring HTTP Server monitoring.
  • For the Microsoft .NET agent, after you upgrade the agent, configure the data collector. For instructions, see Registering the data collector.
    If you installed the agent into a new directory, you must change the Profiler service bin path by using the service controller (sc) command. For example,
    sc \\localhost config DotNetProfilerService binPath=
    "${install_dir}\qe\bin\DotNetProfilerService.exe
    where install_dir is the new installation directory.
  • For the Node.js agent, after you upgrade the agent, configure the agent data collectors. For instructions, see Configuring the Node.js agent.
  • For the OpenStack agent, to further configure the agent to use OpenStack identity API v3, reconfigure all agent instances and update the agent data collector configuration file. For instructions, see OpenStack agent: Reconfiguring agent instances to use OpenStack identity API v3.
  • For the Ruby agent, after you upgrade the agent, configure the data collector. For instructions, see Configuring the diagnostics data collector.
  • For the WebSphere Applications agent, after you upgrade the agent, migrate the data collector by running the command dc_home/bin/migrate.sh/bat from the installation directory of the new version of the agent and restart the application server instance. For instructions, see WebSphere Applications agent: Migrating the data collector.
  • LinuxIf you want to upgrade an older version of the agent that is installed in the /opt/ibm/ccm/agent directory you must complete these steps on the Linux system:
    1. If you confirm that you want to migrate the agent configuration from the old installation directory /opt/ibm/ccm/agent to the new installation directory, for example, /opt/ibm/apm/agent, you must start the agent in the new installation location.
      Restriction: The older version of the agent is stopped automatically in the old installation location but it is not started automatically in the new installation location.
    2. After you verify that the agent works in the new installation directory, you must uninstall the older version of the agent from the /opt/ibm/ccm/agent directory. If you want to remove all agents, run the /opt/ibm/ccm/agent/bin/smai-agent.sh uninstall_all command.