Client Management Suite

Very soon I am going to migrate from CMS 7.0 to CMS 7.1 to improve the system performance and its functionalities. The CMS 7.0 did not meet expectations I had compared to version 6.x.

Performance of  CMS 7.0 is terrible as well as its web interface. Well... all who uses 7.0 knows how it is...

So I started preparation for 7.1 because I still believe that Altiris is great tool. I hope it will not loose my trust...

It is very welcome if you can share with me experiences, guides about such upgrade,

The best advice I have for you is that you read the documentation.  JMart has pulled together a ton of links to valuable documents in this location:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/node/1525181

In particular, you should read ITMS_70Migration_Guide.pdf in its entirety.  Additionally, be sure to review the SMP 7.1 release notes (SMP_7_1_RelNotes.pdf and SMP_7_1_MP1_RelNotes.pdf).  Follow any links to product suite (e.g. Patch Management) release notes that you find in any of these PDFs to ensure you are familiar with the known issues with migration, as well as all of the manual migration steps you'll need to perform.

Although much of the information is in the database, each solution has some data which does not migrate or which is replaced by default settings in 7.1.  By reading through these documents, you can be prepared to plan your migration.

I do know that Symantec support is currently very burdened taking calls from users reporting issues they've already encountered in their 7.1 migrations.  I imagine that most of these people launched into it without reading the migration guides, and now find themselves in a world of hurt.  I can't think of a single issue so pressing in a 7.0 environment that would require someone migrating to production the week of release with their live database, but apparently enough people have done this that support is a little overwhelmed.  (Can you tell who is still waiting on a call back for his pre-production 7.1 issue?)

I highly recommend creating a test environment that mimics your 7.0 setup.  Then, using a test 7.1 server, test and test again the migration from 7.0 to 7.1 until you're sure that all settings have been migrated properly.  I'm in the process of writing an article on installing Symantec Management Platform 7.1 which I hope to post tomorrow.

Hi, I appreciate your great and valuable answer ! Actually, I will create the kind of replica of current environment like - NS, DS, SS plus  few clients to test whole track of migration including impact on SS as well as on Clients. My worry is there are thousands of information in the Symantec documentation and is really hard to extract all what is needed. Nevertheless.. so far I downloaded PDFs and have to spent time reading them .

I am wating for your article about SMP 7.1 !!!

Oh guys, It is the really challenge to be familiar with the PDF about SMP 7.1 upgrade.

I've been discussing the new hardware and software needs of 7.1 with IT management and it looks like we won't be upgrading any time soon.  We don't have the budget for a new physical server, and our VMWare environment is still running VMWare 3.5, which only emulates 64 bit processing.   Emulation isn't good enough to actually run a production server on.  We're testing anyway, but I don't hold out much hope. So until the scheduled VMWare upgrade sometime in August we are stuck on 7.0.

I do hope Symantec is going to continue to address some of the bad outstanding bugs in 7.0 for those of us that CANNOT upgrade.  My biggest fear is that as I call in on serious problems and/or discover bugs, the Syamntec support response is going to be "Oh, you're still on 7.0?  You need to upgrade to fix that problem." 

Granted, support at any company will sometimes say very weird things, but I doubt you would hear that from top-level support.  7.0 is fully supported and you're entitled to request and receive bug fixes.

VMWare ESX 3.5 will work fine.  You just need to run it on a 64-bit OS.  I don't know why you mentioned the need for a new physical server, since virtualization is completely supported.

Depends how big your environmen is you need High , Medium or Low End HW. Anyway up to 10K clients NS can run on VMW 3.5 where in fact max number of CPU is the serious limit, AFAIK it can assing max 4 CPUs. Frankly, I have never run SQL on VMW , always on physical piece of HW.

Based on Symantec recommendation for < 20K you need phisycal SQL as well as NS.  From my experience the very crucial is Hard Disk subsystem which is heavily utilized. The best solution are SSD :-)

I am slowly preparing for CMS 7 to 7.1 migration. I will put NS and SQL on two phisycal hosts W2008 64 bits whereas CMS 7 is now on W2003 and SQL 2005 32bts

Do you think will it work what Symantec recommends in Migration Guide:

SQL migration - Install new SQL 2008 and during the setup just point to old CMDB then the setup will migrate whole DB to SQL 2008

NS migration - use NS migration tool which is provided by Symantec

Do you think after above steps all NS settings, jobs, polices, packages etc are migrated ?

Will Site Servers (TS,PS) will be migrated automatically as well as clients ?

Any hints guys you got from experience ?

Hey Alti Brothers...

I have to implement short process in IT Workflow and frankly, I need advice

It is going to be simple Software Portal page where an user can select a software from the list and then the SW will be deployed automatically from NS.

I know it is possible from NS SW portal but I have to proof it by IT Workflow. Do you know an example to download ?

I'd perform your migration in test, first, to make sure you fully understand all the concepts.  For example, this process will not move your SQL database from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008.  Setup does not migrate the DB from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008, it migrates the DB from the 7.0 schema to the 7.1 schema.  And you're perfectly fine to continue to use SQL 2005 if you like, though you can certainly move it to SQL 2008 if you want.

Are settings, jobs, policies, and packages migrated?  Yes and no.  Did you read the migration guide?  It discusses what will change during the migration, and links to release notes that will explain manual migration steps.  For example, if you modified Default policies for plug-ins, those policies will be reset to defaults.  If you want to save the settings, clone them prior to migration.  Policies will be disabled at migration time to ensure nothing is running and corrupting post-install.

Jobs and tasks will migrate for the most part, but again consult release notes.  The same is true for settings -- most of these are in the CMDB and therefore migrate.

Regarding packages, most should migrate.  But if you install the agent to a different drive on your new server (against the migration guide's recommendation), be prepared to manually migrate your patch packages or resynchronize on your new NS in the new directory.  You'll also have to track down Pending packages or Retrying download packages and correct the paths to the correct drive.  That's usually the case for patch packages and Plug-in packages.  Finally, much, much data from deployment solution must be manually backed up -- though it should migrate, I did have to manually re-import some items.

Your site servers will need to be upgraded in batches.  NS gets upgraded, then site server 1 of 12, then 1/12th of clients, then site server 2 of 12, then 1/12th of clients, and so forth.  You do this so that an adequate number of 7.0 site servers remain to service your 7.0 clients.

There is very much you need to know to migrate successfully, and I'd recommend you read the ITMS Migration guide in full.

Thank you very much for great advice. I'll follow it.