Become familiar with IBM Installation Manager before you start

Before you start the actual installation, verify that you have all the products that you want to install and that you are familiar with IBM® Installation Manager procedures.

About this task

You use IBM Installation Manager to complete the actual upgrade. Before you start, verify that you have all of the necessary installation components, and that you understand the installation procedure.

Read from the following tables whether this step is required for your upgrade path and what the system status is afterward if both Application Center and MobileFirst Server are on the same application.
Table 1. Is this step required for your upgrade path?
Product or component versions Required?
Worklight Server V5.0.6.x to MobileFirst Server V7.1.0 Yes
Worklight Server V6.0.x to MobileFirst Server V7.1.0 Yes
Worklight Server V6.1.x to MobileFirst Server V7.1.0.x Yes
Worklight Server V6.2.x to MobileFirst Server V7.1.0 Yes
MobileFirst Server V6.3.x to MobileFirst Server V7.1.0 Yes
MobileFirst Server V7.0.0 to MobileFirst Server V7.1.0 Yes
V7.1.0 to V7.1.0.x (fix pack or interim fix) Yes
Table 2. System status after this step
Module Status
Application Center Running
MobileFirst Server Running

Procedure

Before you use IBM Installation Manager to upgrade your production server, familiarize (or refamiliarize) yourself with how it works:
  1. Make sure that you have the appropriate version of IBM Installation Manager installed on the installation workstation.

    Verify that your version of IBM Installation Manager is supported by IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Foundation V7.1.0. For more information, see the prerequisite software in System requirements. For more information about IBM Installation Manager procedures, see the IBM Installation Manager user documentation.

    IBM Installation Manager updates are available at Installation Manager and Packaging Utility download links.

    Important: If you are performing an in-place upgrade, and you have IBM Installation Manager installed on your computer in several different modes, for example, administrator mode and nonadministrator (single user) mode, you must use the same mode used to install the previous version of Worklight Server or MobileFirst Server.
  2. Download the repositories that are required for the update from Passport Advantage®, or have them available if they are on physical media.

    For more information about the types of upgrade repositories available, see Information about the repositories.

  3. Verify that the products that you want to update are contained in the IBM Installation Manager repositories.
  4. If you do not plan to use IBM Installation Manager in graphical mode but in silent install mode, review the procedures for a silent install as documented in Command-line installation with XML response files (silent installation) and Working with sample response files for IBM Installation Manager and prepare your response file.

    To prepare your response file from sample response files, create a response file based on the following versions of MobileFirst Server, and sample files:

    Table 3. Sample upgrade response files in the Silent_Install_Sample_Files.zip
    Initial version of MobileFirst Server Sample file
    Worklight Server V5.x upgrade-initially-worklightv5.xml
    Worklight Server V6.x upgrade-initially-worklightv6.xml
    IBM MobileFirst Platform Server V6.x upgrade-initially-mfpserverv6.xml
    IBM MobileFirst Platform Server V7.x upgrade-initially-mfpserver.xml

    In the <offering> element in the <install> element, set the version attribute to match the release you want to upgrade to, or remove the version attribute if you want to upgrade to the newest version available in the repositories.

Information about the repositories

There are three types of repositories: base repositories, delta repositories, and interim fix repositories:

  • A base repository is an installation package that is available on Passport Advantage or on physical media. It is self-contained.
  • A delta repository is an installation package that is available from FixCentral and is labeled as an update pack. It requires a base repository of the previous release version to be functional.
  • An interim fix repository is an installation package that is available from FixCentral and is labeled as an interim fix, and that is only versioned by a build number. It requires the repositories of the previous release version to be functional: either a base repository, or both a base repository and a delta repository.

To install a major release (for example, MobileFirst Server V7.1.0), you need only:

  • The base repository V7.1.0 installation package from Passport Advantage or physical media.

To install a fix pack release (for example, MobileFirst Server V7.1.0.1), you need:

  • The corresponding base repository (such as MobileFirst Server V7.1.0) installation package from Passport Advantage or physical media. The corresponding base repository for V7.1.0.x fix packs is the V7.1.0 release.
  • The appropriate V7.1.0.x installation package from FixCentral.

For a fix pack installation, you must add both repositories to the list known to IBM Installation Manager. Then, in the example given, IBM Installation Manager recognizes the V7.1.0 release as an Install choice and the V7.1.0.x release (or interim fix) as an Update choice.

To install an interim fix release, you can need up to three repositories:

  • The repositories for the release to which the fix applies.
  • The repository for the fix.

For installing an interim fix, you must add all these repositories to the list known to IBM Installation Manager. Then IBM Installation Manager recognizes the interim fix as an Update choice.

Review of the basic IBM Installation Manager steps

Attention: The following steps are not the actual installation. They are preparatory tasks to help you ensure that you have everything that is required for the upgrade. Be sure to click Cancel in the last step.
  1. Start IBM Installation Manager.
  2. Click File > Preferences > Repositories to add references to the repositories that you downloaded and extracted on a local disk, or that you can access through the internet.

    See Repository preferences for details.

  3. Click Install.
  4. Verify that the products list contains everything that you need.
  5. Click Cancel. Do not proceed with the installation.
Parent topic: Preparation for upgrades to MobileFirst Server