Solarwinds Shutdown steps not clear

If you are not performing an upgrade and are simply converting the poller from physical to virtual, you should be safe leaving the other pollers as well as the NPM/NCM server running.

Once the upgrade is completed, it wouldn't hurt to launch the Orion Service Manager on the NPM/NCM server and Shutdown Everything/Start Everything.

Thank you for your prompt response and Insight. So that I am clear (because I'm still not comfortable with Solarwinds software) you are telling me that I only have to shutdown my primary poller/collector before migrating it from a physical box to a VM Host? When you say it won't hurt to stop/start everything are you telling me that I should perform this on my NPM DB server and NCM DB server along with my 9 other "additional poller/collector" hosts  AFTER I have moved the primary poller/collector? Just not clear of the actual process.

You do not need to shut down your SQL server at all (if you do, however, you should stop SW services on all pollers first).

If you are just shutting down the application server/primary poller, you don't need to do anything with the database servers or the other pollers.

Note this assumes that nothing else is changing about the primary server except to move from physical to virtual (IP stays the same, etc).

Clubjuggle,

Thank you again. I appreciate the details. I guess my management still wants to shutdown the additional pollers first for some reason (maybe not comfortable as well) so, I'm not going to argue with them. However, I have to start preparing for upgrading our environment to current versions and also, combine the NPM & NCM databases on one host (get rid of extra server)

In 4 main phases, breaking up between the NCM DB merge and leaving the netflow for last.  – phase 5 is npm 11.5 BUT the release notes and docs are not updated to this yet...so maybe later this year. Can you let me know if the Phase approach below looks good? Thx again

I don't run all of the same modules you do, so I can't comment on the steps you've listed. It seems to me at first glance, however, that you should be able to go in larger steps than that. You don't have to hit every intermediate version to upgrade.

You are correct in allowing significant time for the DB migration in phase 2. In Phase 5, however, you probably mean NPM 11.5.

I'd recommend going to NPM 11.5.1 Hotfix 1 as directly as you can. The new features are great.

If you haven't already, check out the new Product Upgrade Advisor. It will give you a customized upgrade plan taking into account any version dependencies within your environment, and should help you cut out any unnecessary intermediate steps. Support is also great with answering any remaining questions you may have.

Thank you again clubjuggle. your insight is greatly appreciated. I will also solicit input from support especially with the issue that I need to get off of the physical boxes to reduce power consumption in our data center and have been hesitant to move the Database servers to VM host(s). Not sure what SAN disk is needed at this point or what Solarwinds will support if these databases are moved to VM. Thx again

Hi clubjuggle, it's been awhile now and wanted to let you know that we were able to do some upgrades;

So currently we have NPM 11.5.2, NCM 7.3.2, VNQM 4.2, Netflow 3.11, This Sunday I am upgrading NCM to 7.4 and VNQM 4.2.2.

Was curious if you were aware of any issues with NPM 11.5.2 and DB maintenance? Just noticed a "database maintenance has overdue" notifcation for some tables from 6/22/2015. I'm hoping they disappear after this weekend maintenace run but, not sure. Also, I'm getting a pop-up msg for "Object Error" when I select a serial interface inside a node summary page. When a go back a page in the browser and try again it works. Hopeing the NCM to 7.4 upgrade fixes it. I look forward to your feedback. Thx

You should be able to manually kick off a database maintenance, but if the trouble persists I would suggest opening a support case. Neither of those situations sounds normal.