Help on how to migrate NPM 10.4 / NTA 3.10 to latest versions w/existing DB

Hello,

I'm trying to figure out all the steps needed to upgrade a legacy Network Performance Monitor 10.4 installation with NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 3.10. to the latest versions (NPM 12.4 and NTA 4.4/5). The Solarwinds Upgrade Advisor works with just NPM 10.4->12.4, but if I also add NTA 3.10 ->4.5 to the tool it just tells me platforms are incompatible and no upgrade path is suggested. Currently NPM 10.4 and NTA 3.10 running on Win08 R2 VM; DB for both on separate VM running Win08 R2, SQL 2008 R2 (NO SP).

I would like to use the existing database (NTPM 10.4/NTA 3.10) all through the upgrade, even if it means multi-hop migrations to different versions.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions/thoughts.

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Accepted answers

dgsmith80

Looks like a rock steady plan, personally, I wouldn't bother with Step 5, I would just use the latest installer to install NPM12.4 / NTA4.5 and let the config wizard upgrade the database. Of course, that does introduce a smaller risk but as you have the DB backed up prior to migration it's not a massive issue, but I've done this several times for customers and not had any major issues so far.

All comments

dgsmith80

Hi jmuller, Firstly welcome to the Thwack, and sorry to see that your upgrade is such a rubbish one.

My first question would be to ask if there is any specific reason you're dedicated to upgrading the database? The only reason I ask is that NPM10.4 is pretty fundamental, and has had a MAJOR overhaul in the later versions. Whilst upgrades are totally possible (and your right it would need multiple version hops as there is no direct upgrade path), the number of changes made to the DB Table structure in that process is insane, and one thing SolarWinds doesn't do is remove redundant tables from the DB, so you're going to be adding tables in as part of the upgrade that become obsolete in the future upgrades. I would personally recommend building a new environment and starting again.

Secondly, there have been some significant changes made to NetFlow from version 3.x up to 4.5 and they involve changing from a SQL database to FastBit Flow Storage (Local File Storage) and then moving back to SQL again as of version 4.4. The main part of that is that the final stage of moving back to SQL doesn't support data migration, so for you to move to the latest version of NetFlow means starting from scratch with no flow history. To that end, starting fresh seems even more logical, but worst case scenario I would suggest simply uninstalling NetFlow and upgrade NPM on its own for simplicity, and then install NTA4.5 at the end and let it create a new SQL Database.

The final caveat is your server requirements, I'm not sure if I understood fully, are you saying you have to stay on Server 2008 R2 / SQL Server 2008 R2? Or you can upgrade but they will need to be in-place upgrades? I assume you can't provision 2 new VM's?

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

David

jmuller

David,

Thanks for answering! Great info about NTA, I think uninstalling the old version before upgrading NPM makes the most sense, since I cant even migrate any old flow history anyway.

Hear what you're saying about the DB changing alot. But, I want to keep the same database as there are currently a couple thousand elements in NPM along with other reporting/alert info. Unless the upgrade hops completely fail with existing DB, I would like to reuse it.

As to the NMP upgrade, the goal is to setup 2 new VMs for the upgrade, since I want to use Windows 16 along with a newer version of SQL.

The new NPM server will use Windows 2016, and new DB server will run SQL 2014.

The old NPM server is running Windows 2008 R2.

My migration plan so far is:

On old NPM v10.4 VM:

1. Uninstall NTA 3.10

2. Do an in-place upgrade to NPM v11.5

3. Do an in-place upgrade to v12.1 [This is the latest version of NPM to support Win08R2 OS]

4. Copy DB to new SQL Server

On new NPM VM:

5. Install NPM v12.1 (trial mode) and link to new SQL Server with old DB

6. Do an in-place upgrade to NPM v12.4

7. Add NTA 4.5 software after NPM 12.4 install/upgrade succeeds

Let me know what you think and if I'm missing any steps. I'd check if SolarWinds is working after each step.

-Joe

dgsmith80