Our environment is very simple: 1 SMP server and 1 SQL server, both virtual with 16GB memory and 10GB connections to NetApp and Isilon storage.
This was the information support dug out of the log files I provided:
Review results of the available evidence (SMIM logs, SMP logs and MSI log).
MSI installation started at 14.03.2016 12:28:02 and ended 14.03.2016 19:30:15.
Total of 103 MSI files were installed/upgraded.
Longest installing components:
33 components of the Symantec Managment Platform 8.0 - 2 hours.
Platform Core Upgrade 8.0 Language Pack x64 (8.0.2298) - 57 minutes
Having reviewed the MSI log altiris_nsupgradelanguages_8_0_x64.msi it looks like the RestoreNSPauseState custome action in the MSI times out after 30 minutes.
This action runs a VBScript. Service operations on a busy system are often slow and can time out.
PatchManagementUpgradeLanguages x64 (8.0.2229) - 20 minutes
Altiris CMDB Solution 8.0 (8.0.2228) - 20 minutes
Altiris Asset Management Solution 8.0 (8.0.2228) - 16 minutes
Altiris Patch Management Solution 8.0 (8.0.2229) - 30 minutes
Altiris Activity Center 8.0 (8.0.2220) - 14 minutes
Database configuration started 19:30:15 and ended 20:21:26.
None of our previous upgades took this long. I have run pretty much every version since 7.5 came out, including all hotfixes. Typically it was about an hour to 1.5 hours to upgrade.