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Solarwinds upgrade query

Dear All,

We are planning to upgrade our Solarwinds application to higher version. At present we have around 5 instances of application with different modules installed in different instances.

Out of 5 instances 3 Each instances are of same version and other 2 are of different version. Below are the details of application and database versions. These instances are having additional polling engines as well.

Instance1 : Orion Platform 2017.1.3 SP3 NPM 12.1, NCM 7.6, NTA 4.2.2 : Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Instance2 : Orion Platform 2017.1.3 SP3 NPM 12.1, NCM 7.6, NTA 4.2.2 : Microsoft SQL Server 2014

Instance3 : Orion Platform 2017.1.3 SP3 NPM 12.1, NCM 7.6, NTA 4.2.2 : Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Instance4 : Orion Platform 2015.1.3 NPM 11.5.3, NCM 7.4.1, NTA 4.1.2 : Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Instance5 : Orion Platform 2015.1.2 NPM 11.5.2, NCM 7.4, NTA 4.1.1 : Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Here we want to do few things

1. Merge Instance 2 and Instance 4 into a single instance with latest version of the application being installed and monitoring network devices of all the 2 locations.

2. Merge instance 1, 3 and 5 into a single instance with latest version of the application being installed and monitoring network devices of all the 3 locations.

Once we install the latest version of Solarwinds application on a new server with database version as MS SQL 2016. Could someone clarify on below points

1. Can we restore the application back ups from instance 2 and 4 and restore it on a newly installed application. Does this works in Solarwinds?

2. Can we restore the database back ups of instance 2 and 4 which are of different database versions on to MS SQL 2016 server. Kindly confirm on this.

Best Regards

Bharath

Message was edited by: Bharath B

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All comments

Dear All,

Could someone give inputs on my query.

Best Regards

Bharath

yaquaholic

You can't merge the databases easily, and I would certainly bring the versions up to matching levels before attempting it.

With every just about every Orion upgrade there is a change to the database schema, which could cause you a lot of pain.

If you need to keep the historical data and have an active support contract, reach out to customer support and see if they can assist, but this won't be for the faint hearted.

If you don't need the historical data, I would build the new Orion platform(s), then export the IPs/FQDNs from each old platform and use either Network Discovery or the API to re-populate your new Orion platform.

grantallenby

Hi Bharath,

This is possible but its time consuming and difficult.

Do you need the historical data from each instance? if you can loose it its a whole lot easier. If you do need it you will have to look up merging DB's but I don't know of many people that have actually done this as it causes so many issues. Solarwinds can help here though, although they might not want to at first. Merging DB's with different SQL version is even more of an issue.

What level licences are you running? when combing 3 instances into one you will need to factor if will one of the single licence be enough. for example..

Instances 1 NMP 250

Instance 3 NPM 250

Instance 5 NPM 1000

For this there is no way to combine licences, you would need to talk to Solarwinds and get them to sort you out a price on changing those 3 into 1 NPM 2000 licence.

Ideally you will need to tell us the licence levels for each module on each instance.

designerfx

Everything is different until NPM 12. After that, things are a bit more unified. I'd try to get everything to current release first, unless licenses are expired.

HerrDoktor

The only feasible way to merge instances in my opinion is to use the API, there are some examples here on Thwack how to „copy over“ nodes you need to differentiate between SNMP and WMI Nodes. I haven’t dealt with Agent based Nodes to copy over. So I can’t make any suggestions for that.

if you need more Info just reply here. I‘ll search for the Threads that I used when doing migrations.

bourlis

Bharath,

Last year we had the same challenge. We had 4 instances of Solarwinds, all running different versions and all running different software packages. We looked at merging everything so as not to loose any historical data. In the end it wasn't worth the hassle. For us, it was easier to "beef up" one of the systems and to migrate the nodes, users reports and plugins from one system to another and take a loss of the historical data. We documented everything thoroughly as so that if we were audited or questioned we could show why things were they way they were.

Hi Yaquoholic,

Yes I do agree with you on this. It would be very tedious to do multiple in place upgrades and also getting the database at the same level. Thanks for your inputs.

Best Regards

Bharath

Hi Grantallenby,

Yes I agree with you multiple database versions to be merged would be a painful task. Need to check with customer whether historical data is required or not.

Thanks for sharing inputs on licensing part which I was not aware on whether it can be merged or not. I will check with Solarwinds support team on this.

Best Regards

Bharath

Hi HerrDoktor,

Thanks for your response. For example, as mentioned in my query. I want to merge instance 2 and 4. Instance 2 is having some 500 nodes and instance 4 is having some 400 nodes. Now If I want to merge by installing a new instance on a new server. Can I take application backup [including all the configurations] of instance 2 and 4 and restore it in freshly installed instance of version 12.4. Does this works by any chance without any issues? I suspect it will not. Kindly share your thoughts.

Best Regards

Bharath

Hi Bourlis,

Thanks for your response and sharing your inputs. I think the method you had employed looks good.

Best Regards

Bharath

Hi Designerfx,

Thanks for your response and inputs.

Best Regards

Bharath

Hi All,

One more thing I would like to get clarified here. I would like to take an example of merging 2 and 4. If I build a new instance of 12.4 version on new server and try to restore application backup of instance 2 and 4 on a new instance or may not be full application backup. At least I would say node level and alert configuration backups. Does this successfully work on new instance? Kindly advise.

Best Regards

Bharath

HerrDoktor

Nope, in my opinion this won’t work. The database Schema is totally different.

I am not too sure about the SDK capability of Orion Core 2015.. too long ago

i would Update as far as you can go with Instance 4, Update instance 2 to the latest version and then merge the nodes from 4 to your new 2 instance.

you will lose historical data. That’s something you should be aware of.

Hi HerrDoktor,

Thank you very much for your inputs.

Best Regards

Bharath

m_roberts

This is the approach we would take:

1. Identify which of the merge instances have the most important historical data. For example you may say that Instance 2 is more important that instance 4

2. Upgrade and migrate instance 2 to new servers if necessary

3. Either using API methods (more involved but more complete and accurate, oh and much quicker) extract nodes, interfaces, reports, alerts, Custom Properties etc.

4. Update the new objects to include additional monitoring capabilities. Network Discovery is best for this

As others have indicated importing historic data while possible, will be highly complex and time consuming to perform.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for you inputs and ideas.

Best Regards

Bharath

lmcbuilder

This is correct.

You can pull IP addresses from the old platforms and do a cut and paste of those IP addresses into discovery on the "last man standing" (LMS) platform.

These will be new nodes; so you will lose custom properties and the like, but the stats and other data will be fresh.

Plus, you will probably want to redo a lot of sorting and grouping work to accommodate the bigger role of the LMS platform in managing the entire enterprise.

Hi Imcbuilder,

Thanks for your inputs.

HerrDoktor

so as promised, the sources I used to create my "move Nodes" script, I didn't find the source how I moved my SAM templates.

OrionSDK/CopyNodes.ps1 at master · solarwinds/OrionSDK · GitHub

OrionSDK/CRUD.AddWMINode.ps1 at a1f7a3b8688df8cf148c81b90595f6c46a58a708 · solarwinds/OrionSDK · GitHub

Cheers,

Great thanks a lot for sharing the link. I just gone through the link and looks very much helpful.