Upgrading to version 7.1 offers two strategies. You can either upgrade your entire environment at once or upgrade in phases. Both strategies offer their own advantages and disadvantages. In the end however, all clients and Rational® ClearQuest® servers must be upgraded to 7.1.
Upgrading everything at once
By upgrading all at once, you can avoid problems that arise from supporting software components from different releases. All Version 7.1 features are available immediately. However, the Rational ClearQuest environment is not available until all clients and servers are upgraded, all changes are made to the user databases and schema repositories, packages are upgraded, and other IBM Rational products are reinstalled. Any unforeseen problems must be resolved before the environment can be made available to users.
Upgrading in phases
Upgrading in phases means that the environment is only unavailable for several short periods and that risk is reduced because problems can be addressed as they arise. If you are upgrading in phases, identify which
Rational ClearQuest servers and clients to upgrade first and which to upgrade later. For example, you might want to upgrade the clients and servers for one project team before another team. If some people are members of both project teams, you must consider whether upgrading their clients affects their ability to work with the user databases of the second project. In addition, there are other considerations to take into account when choosing this upgrade strategy.
- Some clients, servers, and vendor databases are not compatible with clients and servers from version 7.1. This software must be upgraded in the first phase of the upgrade process. All clients from version 2001.04.xx through 2003.06.xx (6.0) must be upgraded to version 7.1.
- A mismatch of feature levels in a phased upgrade approach can also present numerous compatibility issues that require additional attention. Maintaining a single feature level throughout the phased upgrade strategy and then increasing the feature level after the entire environment is upgraded helps you avoid these issues. For more information, see Deciding on the feature level.
- If you have a MultiSite configuration and you want complete bidirectional replication between all sites, you must upgrade all Rational ClearQuest MultiSite synchronization servers and Rational Shipping Servers at the same time. If you can accept unidirectional replication (that is, some sites cannot receive updates from other sites), you can upgrade MultiSite synchronization servers and shipping servers in phases. This option requires careful planning. For more information, see Deciding on the feature level.