Two Information Servers at once

vmcburney · Post by **vmcburney** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:36 pm

Looking for stories from anyone who has installed two versions of information Server on the same server at once - especially combinations of versions 8.1, 8.5 and 8.7. We want to use this approach for an upcoming upgrade to 8.7 where it will share the server with 8.1.2 for a period of a couple weeks and once 8.7 has passed testing we will uninstall 8.1.2. We just want to know any potential problems with this approach.

PaulVL · Post by **PaulVL** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 11:51 pm

I was thinking of doing that at one point.

on Unix I'd be worried about the install process looking at /.dshome
It would be messed up if two versions would be on the same server.

BI-RMA · Post by **BI-RMA** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 2:53 am

We are about to set up an environment like that. Installation of 8.5 next to 8.0.1 is planned for this week.

Operating system is AIX 5.3L.

We plan to use different users, groups and a different file-system for 8.5 as compared to 8.0.1.

According to IBM Concierge Service /.dshome file needs to deleted before installation of 8.5.

I will keep You posted with the result of installation and test of 8.5.

This will not be the final configuration in our environment, though. We simply perform a sandbox-install in our existing environment to go through the migration-procedure from 8.0.1 to 8.5 before a new hardware-platform will be established to run 8.5 only.

PaulVL · Post by **PaulVL** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:39 am

So your dsadm is now going to be dsadm85 ? Etc...

I guess you are also planning on renaming xmeta database?

BI-RMA · Post by **BI-RMA** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 8:03 am

This may not be necessary, because xmeta is going to run in a different instance of DB2 LUW belonging to a different user.
We have to install DB2 V9.7 parallel to V9.1, because V9.1 is not supported with DS 8.5.
Same with WebSphere Application Server. We have to install a second instance of it, because the existing version is not supported by DS 8.5 and we do not want to change the existing (production) environment.

vmcburney · Post by **vmcburney** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 8:55 am

We will be going for XMETA2 or XMETA87 to be stored in the same database as the old XMETA.

mhester · Post by **mhester** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 5:20 pm

We were going to do this while at USAA and ultimately decided to stand up new hardware. The installation documentation actually discusses how to do this and I believe the installer also asks for an instance name so it was designed to do just what you want.

I know of a few customers who have gone this route. When done with the upgrade or need of the "other" version it can be uninstalled.