Our upgrade on Saturday 11/10 was not all sunshine and lollipops, but it went well overall in my opinion. I ran into some SQL Server problems that I thought were going to stop the whole process, but everything worked out. Some key points:
- We reverted back to NAS 2.74 due to some troubles with NAS 3.03. I think we could have gotten the new NAS working correctly, but that was not a priority. We fast-tracked this upgrade for the SLM database changes, so the NAS can be upgraded another time (after the holiday shopping rush). I am a little disappointed because the new NAS is a major improvment, but I had to prioritize our immediate business needs.
- The database update took about twice as long as I expected (over 48 hours). Fortunately, the processing of incoming messages by the data_engine was not hindered by the ongoing database update. We were pointing to an alternate database server (old production server that is now used for testing) to create reports, so this was not really even downtime from the perspective of our customers.
- When the database update finished, there was one table that it reported it could not move. It turned out that the data from the table had been moved, and the table had been deleted, but the QoS object record had not been updated. This was easily fixed by hand. (This may have been caused by the next issue below, which should be fixed by Nimsoft.)
- Since the upgrade, we have noticed a problem with the data_engine restarting when running the CompressData maintenance task. Nimsoft is working on this, and I think the fix should be in the CR version of the upgrade. This issue is not a show-stopper, and we certainly expected some minor issues when going forward with a beta upgrade.
- After the CompressData issue is fixed, it looks like that task could have a significant impact on the performance of the database when it is running. In our experience, this was the case before the upgrade, but it appears the impact may be greater with the new database layout. Unfortunately, I do not have enough information to be sure of this, so I would encourage everyone to watch for this.
- The data_engine is able to process messages much faster with the new database layout. The jury is still out when it comes to hard numbers, and we will probably not be able to test until January. Initial results show a 4x increase in speed over a short period of time (30 minutes), but I am not sure how long that rate can be sustained yet.
Nimsoft was very helpful throughout the testing and upgrade process, and I am grateful that they were able to put together an upgrade with so many improvements. I would encourage all other NimBUS users to test out the upgrade when the CR is released. If anyone has any questions, please let me know.
Regards,
Keith