Reinstalling NPM to the same server after server was completely rebuilt

I was wondering if somebody could give me some advice.

My current installation of Orion products is residing on a W2003 Std. Ed server utilizing SQL Express that was installed with the NPM. To improve performance I want to totally rebuild the server: change my RAID from RAID5 to RAID10 to improve I/O, install W2003 Ent. Ed to add memory in excess of 4GB, install SQL2005 Standard to bypass the 4GB db size limitation, and then re-install all Orion products (NPM, APM, NetFlow, LAN Surveyor, Tools). I have read the migration manual, but it does not cover the situation where the migration of Orion products ends up on the same server (same name and same IP.)

Could somebody please give me some high level steps on what should be done? Should I unregister the licenses prior to rebuilding the server? My current NPM version is 9.1.0. Should I upgrade to 9.5 before rebuilding and re-installing? Thanks!

sergei

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Accepted answers

Yann

Hi,

I just want to add my 2 cents to confirm what you said on 1st step.

I recommend not going to the next version during your hardware upgrade, you should already know how your current version acts and new hardware (although unlikely) might introduce new issues.

The current scenario described by Sergei is similar to moving an installation to another server.

Moving and Upgrading an installation should NEVER be done concurrently or it will result having e.g. Orion NPM 9.5 connecting to a NPM 9.1 database. Since the structure is not the same and that the installer/configuration wizard is not aware this is an upgrade, the best you could expect is having a non-working installation. Instead schedule one before the other in your upgrade plan. In this case I would recommend upgrading first Orion on the current server so that it only requires installing the latest version on the rebuilt server.

When a such error happens you need to uninstall the new version of Orion. Restore a backup of the database prior to the installation of this version. Install the previous version and start the upgrade.

HTH,

Yann

All comments

jtimes

I just did this same action on four of my eight polling engine servers and my Orion server this week.

1. Make sure you have the install files (and service packs) for the version you are currently running
I recommend not going to the next version during your hardware upgrade, you should already know how your current version acts and new hardware (although unlikely) might introduce new issues.

2. Back-up your Database, even if you want to start over.

3. Back-up your web and user settings.

4. Make note of any customizations that you have done, and how to re-do them.
and finally:

5. Unregister your license(s) prior to shutting down the old server.

With the exception of #5 mine went relatively smooth. ;)
Good Luck

Yann

Hi,

I just want to add my 2 cents to confirm what you said on 1st step.

I recommend not going to the next version during your hardware upgrade, you should already know how your current version acts and new hardware (although unlikely) might introduce new issues.

The current scenario described by Sergei is similar to moving an installation to another server.

HTH,

Yann

sborise

Thank you Yann for your reply. Sorry it took me so long to actually perform the migration and verify your answer. Thanks!

sborise

jtimes,

I followed your advice and did not upgrade prior to migrating my installation to a new server. After everything was re-installed I attempted to register my NPA license and received an error. Contacted support and was told that I need to download my software from the customer portal and install that instead of reinstalling my original binaries. As it turned out the version at the customer portal was 3.0, while my original installation was 2.5. I figured I will upgrade to v3 just so I can reactivate my licenses, but the installation of v3 notified me that NPA v3 is not compatible with my NPM (9.1sp4) and that I should upgrade NPM as well. I decided not to and contacted support again. After a long discussion trying to explain my intention to reinstall my original version I was promised that my license would be regenerated.

Overall everything went fine accept for the struggle with the support to activate my older version.

Thanks!

sergei