Endpoint Protection

Dear friends,

I need some suggestions and recommendations. Alright, here is the problem I have an upgradation comming up. I need to upgrade SEPM and SEP clients from version 11 RU6 to the version 12.1 the organization is having about 300 clients, others suggestions are following

• embedded database is used
• no replication partner is installed

What i have in my mind is that first i will take the backup of the database and then i will upgrade the SEPM to 12.1 but what if the database size is too high?? and there is a possiblity that in the process of taking the backup database can might corrupt too??? any better solution for this??

And the other thing is about the clients how am i going to upgrade the clients??? go in the polices tab and then upgrading the install package?? any workaround ??? suggestions ??? can't i go on individual machines and replace the sylink.xml ?? isn't this option of doing it appropriate ???

I hope u guys have understood my problem waiting for ur suggestions and recommendations.

Best Regards,

I would recommend following our official migration documentation in the link below.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH174545

Under the section upgrade client software are a few options on upgrading the clients. The easiest is the autoupgrade method which is to put a install package into your groups using the upgrade clients with package wizard found under admin-> install packages.

From my person experience doing EXACTLY what you are doing...

First, the Database backup went fine.  The Database was relatively large but not outrageous.  Nothing was corrupted, but you should make sure that you have quality backups at all times. 

Upgrading the clients is very easy.  All you need to do is take the install package under the admin tab, install package, and click on Upgrade Clients with Package.  Then just choose the OU's that you want to upgrade.  I would personally suggest dropping about 10-15 clients in an OU and upgrade ONLY those clients to 12.1 at first.  Let those clients work on 12.1 for a few days before you upgrade the rest of your clients.  You do not want to fully upgrade (in my opinion) to 12.1 without having a good test like this.  Going to 300 individual machines and upgrading is unnecessary.

Any more suggestions guys?

You should have read this first:
Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH162730

"What i have in my mind is that first i will take the backup of the database and then i will upgrade the SEPM to 12.1 but what if the database size is too high??"
If the database size is too high, it would stop the database. Although for 300 clients, unless you are getting thousands of malwares everyday or have retained all the logs since the very first server install, you would be fine.

"and there is a possiblity that in the process of taking the backup database can might corrupt too???"
yes, there is. you should test restore that to be sure.

"any better solution for this??"
This would really help: Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH102333

"And the other thing is about the clients how am i going to upgrade the clients???"
There are many ways, you should plan on this. Depending on your bandwidth and hardware specifications of the desktops/endpoints, policies, etc.

"go in the polices tab and then upgrading the install package??"
You can do that.

"any workaround ???"
Yes.

"suggestions ???"
Use Migration Wizard or the Push Deployment Wizard.

"can't i go on individual machines and replace the sylink.xml ??"
You only need to do this if a client is not reporting. Or you changed servers and the communication settings has changed (server hostname and IP address)


"isn't this option of doing it appropriate ???"
If referring to Sylink, this is more for communication troubleshooting that for migrating.

Follow the Link

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH165170

Thanks

Regards,

Anil