QVW migration from 8.2 to 9.0

[#1]

Hello,

Can anyone share your migration experience? From v8.2 to v9.0.

1. Man day taken and down time required?
2. Licensing, whether we can just tranfer current v8.2 to v9? is there any cost?
3. Client plugin, whether a new plugin is needed?
4. Any differences in Publish & Access Portal?
5. How to migrate the qvw files from 8.2 to 9?
6. Your migration plan if there's any.

[#2]

Hello,

just a personal feedback: we migrate from 8.5 to 9.0 SP 2 a week ago.It was promised to me that would take just 0.5-1 day. Nope, the reality is that you better plan more time for the migration!

We have a pretty small set on files/jobs/tasks and users - nothing really complicated of challenging.
Running standard de-install and install. routine turned out that 'some minor adjustments' have to be done afterwards (= a couple hrs by phone and for tests).

The publisher upgrade tool which should translate the old task/job structure for 9.0 creates new interesting chains of tasks which must be broken/re-arranged afterwards by hand (=a couple more hrs for fixing/testing). ..

The new GUI for the publisher functionality may look nice at the fist view. But I'm note sure that this progress is what I appreciate.

However,
- some very basic layout needs to be improved, you do need frequently scrolling left and right because the windows which shows your jobs are fixed and too small, they doesn't use the full sreen
- in 8.5 there was a easy way to go thru the history of logfiles to a specific job - I still miss that in 9.0
- another example: under 8.5 you could set up 2 different job's using 2 different triggers to do a full-reload or a partial reload of the same qvd-file, now you can have 2 triggers in one job but it isn't possible (at least I didn't found a way so far) to teach QV which trigger start a full-reload and which trigger the partial reload
- the promised "brandnew EDX-data exchange facility" (to exchange data between QV and outside systems) thru the web might be somewhere.. but where ?
- the EDX-jobs are very well hidden in the QV Ent.Mngmt.Console under 'system' 'supporting tasks'..

My suggestion is that you arrange a remote-session w/ a Q.Tech server expert thru the whoöe installation and save some extra days for it.

Cheers, Thomas

[#3]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for sharing the detailed info.

but there are few more questions i'd like to know...

1. In total, how long did you spend on your migration (in-term of manday)? and the total down time?
2. How did you convert your qvw files to be v9 compatible? or there's no conversion needed?
3. How did this affect your users? do they need to install new plugin ?

[#4]

Hi Nick,

I will try to give you some rough figures (ballpark only, I didn't use my stopwatch).

1. the installation itself incl. a final backup before, the de-install of 8.5 and install. of 9.0 could be done in less than a day in total. This incl. the new server as well as the fat client for developing.we now use the optional QV-internal web-client for the web accesspoint, hoping that will further reduce admin time. Anyway, the pure install.process itself was not the issue.
In my troubled mind the real issue comes from the little things you have to change everywhere, switching ports and settings. This might be pretty esay/fast for the QT-cracks which works on it every day. Is it defintely not self-explaining for a IT-person who walks thru the routine setup and sees QV as one of 100 apps/systems he has to maintain. I still owe our collague a beer for that.

For the later-on fixing of jobs, breakdown, tests etc. it really depends on the complexity of your jobs. I just have 5 jobs/tasks or so to maintain and it took me in total 2-3 another days incl. the frequent tests and watching if/how the automated jobs are runnning or not.

8.5 was kind of rock-solid running during the last half year, under 9.0 I still have problems w/ automated jobs which don't run. For unknown reasons the QVS couldn't open the qvd-file sometimes. Trying open it w/ the fat client - same problem. Unfortunatly QV does tell my why ? In general it doesn't look to me the same phys.server runs QV so solid as before..

2. fortunately the file-format 8.5 vs 9.0 doesn't changed at all (remembering SAS Vers. 6 vs later versions.....), so your old files could still be used (filesize doesn't changed too what means to me the internal format stays the same)

3.if you install 9.0 you can place now a button on the login webpage for the user "IE plugin Download" so anybody could get it easily w/o contacting you
QV Enterprise Mnmgt Console / System / right side of screen "Plugin Download" - marked the box here

I hope that helps a bit,

Cheers, Thomas