Portal upgrade from 6.0 to 7.3 strategy

[Former Member]

Hi Gurus,

We are currently on NW 640, EP 6.0 on Sql 2000 and windows 2003. We are planning to upgrade to the latest NW 7.3 which requires sql 2008 and Windows 2008. I am looking for best possible aproach I could take to do this upgrade.

My strategy:

I would like to first upgrade the windows to 2008 then the SQL to 2008 and finaly NW to 7.3. However, based on my research on PAM(Product Availability Matrix), I realized that NW640 is not compatible with SQL 2008 or Windows 2008. So I plan to do the upgrade in 2 phases: First upgrade the SQL to 2005, then NW to 7.0. In the second phase, I would upgrade the Windows to 2008, then  SQL to 2008 and finally upgrae NW from 7.0 to 7.3

Please comment on my approach and also suggest any better approaches

Thanks!

VK

[HuseyinBilgen · Accepted solution]

Hi Veera,

Weeks ago, we did an upgrade on the same platform as you had.The only difference is the Source Release SQL Server Release. It was SQL Server 2005 in our case.

So, roughly, your steps must be as follow:

1. Upgrade SQL Server 2000 to 2005 on Source System.
2. Upgrade NetWeaver 2004 to NetWeaver 7.0 EHP2 on Windows2003/SQL Server 2005 System only if your System is 64-bit. Otherwise make a system copy on a 64-bit platform.
3. Export your 7.02 System from Windows2003/SQL Server 2005 platform and import it into Windows 2008R2/SQL Server 2008R2 platform (System Copy)
4. There ,upgrade your system from 7.02 to 7.3

This is what we've done and worked so far.

BR

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Huseyin,

We are on windows 32 bit. So we initially planned to start with homogenous system copy to x64 according to the note 960769. After that we planned to go with the step one mentioned by you. Would you suggest me to do system copy to x64 bit after steps 1 or 2 ?

[HuseyinBilgen · Accepted solution]

I suggest you to to the system copy before Step 2. So it is better to do the 1st Step onto a new x64 server. Copy your existing system onto Win2003/SQL 2005 x64 platform and continue with Step 2.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Huseyin,

May I know why you chose system copy instead of in-place OS and db upgrade for step 3? Also, based on your experience if you could give me a rough high-level timeline for this project, that would help!

Thanks again!

VK

[HuseyinBilgen · Accepted solution]

Hi Veera,

Sorry for the delay. I was at SAP TechEd Madrid last week and now I'm at home

As you're going to re-install the OS the easiest way to keep everything working is to export the system and import again. Otherwise you've to deal with permissions, locations, shares,...

This way you can also re-distribute your directories if needed.

Normally, an upgrade in such a case takes 5-10 days per system depending on your H/W resources and your experience

Good luck

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you Huseyin,

Your input is very helpful!

Veera