I am in the middle of this...and wishing I wasn't. I'm not a sys admin and only doing it because the ball rolled in my corner. The deeper I get, the more I find I don't know...and I'm wondering how long this upgrade actually takes. I know it's taking me longer because of the experience factor (or lack thereof) but I'd like to know what to aspire to.

Apps? Environment? 8.0.3?

Apps are 8.0.3, Envrionment is 8.0.3.5 (patching up to 8.0.3.7), Windows OS

It took a couple of weeks to first identify all of the user guides you need, what order to do them in, download patches, verify minimum levels of components, etc. To actually apply it on AIX going from ESP6 to ESP7 and applying the server express fixpack it took about 4 hours, not counting the recompile of the productline. That was in production. Doing it in test took about twice as long to take our time with the instructions, make notes, open a few tickets with Support, etc.

I did it in solaris earlier this year. The biggest issue was getting ALL the additional components as well, i.e. Edi, Processflow, Ios, MF cobol, Perl, Java, etc...

It took probably about a one day to actually put it in, but about 2-3 months to plan it out and test.

If you make sure to write down all the things you need and in the order you need it in, then when you actually put it in it goes by pretty quick. It's the damn compiles that take forever.

Thanks. Unfortunately I have no "plan it out and test" time...so I'm having to learn as I go. I have definitely had to open support tickets...seems like as soon as one closes, I have to open a new one. Slow going...but yes I am documenting every step along the way.

We were on Windows2000 8.0.3ESP5 when we started. We completed the ESP7 cyclical in preparation for our LSF9 upgrade.

For go-live this was less than a one-day event.

Learning this was tough indeed. There were many many components that needed to be upgraded. Everything from Java and Perl, to Portal, patches, etc. We didn't even have the patch installer in place when we started.

Email me and I'll see if I can't get you some of our overview documentation since it sounds like we're on a similar platform and situation.

Thanks Keith. Sorry I have not replied earlier...was pretty much in heads-down mode. I completed the upgrade (today in fact), but it took the better part of two weeks. Obviously it took me longer as I have no sysadmin experience, but even so, I can't imagine doing this in less than a day for production. How did you manage that?

We had done it twice before (DEV and TEST env) and had taken fairly good notes. The 1st time did probably take about two weeks to figure it all out, but the actual buttons to push just didn't take all that long. For production we started about 9a and finished about 5p, including a few technical / system issues with out windows cluster.

In this time we upgraded / installed the following:

Perl
Java
Lawson's Installer Utility
8.0.3 ESP7
IOS 8.0.3.7
Portal 3.1.7
Callaborative Commerce (PFlow Std) 8.0.3.7\
various patches to each of the above.


We had notes on all the directories, env variables, etc that needed to be set, so it was just a matter of typing it all in.

I have attached a document showing our install notes so you can see our process.

Thanks Keith! That is a great document. I documented my "experience" pretty thoroughly, but I like this as a summary/overview, and I'll plagiarize a bit, with your permission. :-) Definitely would have helped me in a few spots when I got a bit "lost". However, I have to give credit to Lawson Support...even though I was upgrading on an unsupported platform (Win 2000), they were incredibly helpful, and responded timely to every stupid question I asked.

I did pretty much the exact same upgrade, except I did not do the Process Flow stuff, and I did do Design Studio. We don't have a clustered system, so that is probably an advantage.

I will have to spend some time laying out a plan for our production upgrade and see if I can whittle down the time. Thanks again.