Choose an upgrade strategy

You have two strategies for upgrading Rational® ClearQuest®: 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 the same release.

Upgrading everything at one time

By upgrading all at once, you can avoid problems that arise from supporting software components from different releases. All version 8.0 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

When you upgrade in phases, the ClearQuest environment is only down for several short periods and 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, you must consider these issues when you are choosing this upgrade strategy.
  • Some clients, servers, and vendor databases are not compatible with clients and servers from version 8.0. This software must be upgraded in the first phase of the upgrade process.
  • A mismatch of feature levels in a phased upgrade approach can also present numerous compatibility issues that require more attention. You can avoid these problems by maintaining a single feature level throughout the phased upgrade strategy, and then increasing the feature level after the entire environment is upgraded. For more information, see Decide on the feature level for schema repositories and databases.
  • 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 Decide on the feature level for schema repositories and databases.

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