Upgrade from 8.1 to 9.1

[DatastageCoEUser]

We are embarking on an upgrade from 8.1 to 9.1. Is there a list of stages which usually cause issues after the upgrade ? Is there a list of built in functions which usually cause issues after the upgrade ?
We have access to the 8.1 metadata repository and we are in a position to fire a query on the metadata and get info on which stages are present in each job and how many times it occurs. We want to be able to use this info to estimate the upgrade accurately.

[priyadarshikunal]

There are many thing which can cause issues when upgrading. Did you talk to the sales representative regarding the same? They should be happy to tell you that.

Off my head, SAP pack, especially ABAP stage will use RFC call instead of CPI-C. Null handling differs in transformer. Field() function if used more that one character as delimiter, Environment variable are case insensitive in 8.7 and 9.1

[vinothkumar]

Enterprise DB stages are not present in 9.1. IBM will provide some utilities to convert them to connector stages. In those scenarios, if you performing UPSERT using user defined sql, it might throw some errors.

Null handling is very strict in 9.1 whereas in 8.1 it will throw an warning and run. But job will fail in 9.1.

Recently we did upgrade from 8.1 and 9.1...

[DatastageCoEUser]

How effective is the Connector migration tool ?
I propose to use this tool to first convert all the enterprise stages to connector stages. Then take an export from 8.1 and import into 9.1. Will this approach reduce the likelihood of resorting to code changes after migration into 9.1 ?

Is it possible to list out 8.1 stages which can cause issues ?

[priyadarshikunal]

Did you try to customize the pallete to see if you can find the enterprise stage? The default pallete may not have enterprise edition. As I do not see that in the release notes.

Try customizing the pallete and if you don't know about that, try this link

[priyadarshikunal]

and as far as connector migration tool is concerned, It does not guarantee 100% results, And jobs needs to be tested.

[vmcburney]

You have the opportunity to upgrade to 11.3 instead of 9.1.2. IIS 11.3 is currently only supported on a DB2 repository but I would expect the Oracle and SQL Server versions to be available within a couple weeks. The effort to go to 9.1.2 or 11.3 is about the same - version 11.3 has a faster installer due to a smaller footprint of WebSphere Application Server. DataStage is almost the same between the two releases with 11.3 having better access to HTTP/REST, big data and MDM data sources.

If you have any Metadata Workbench or Business Glossary licenses then version 11.3 will give you an upgrade path to the Information Governance Catalog which has better data lineage and handling of DataStage metadata and unlimited users of data lineage.

[qt_ky]

11.3 was made available for download June 27, 2014. Like other major releases, it contains a lengthy fix list. I found over 18 security and rollup patches for 9.1.2 that were included in the base install of 11.3, so that alone saves a lot of install time!!

[DatastageCoEUser]

I still have not got the answer to my original question Need a list of stages and functions in 8.1 which can cause issues after upgrade to 9.1

[priyadarshikunal]

and thats what I mentioned in my first post, ask the sales person selling you 9.1.

People here have given you the hints. If you want to compile, read all release notes, fix lists etc.

[chulett]

No-one here is sitting on a list like that. You'll get some tips from people on specific / general issues they've run into but there's no exhaustive list. As noted, go back to the source / vendor and the release documentation.

You need to assume that any of them could be problematical and prepare for full regression testing.