Network Management

Are there any known issues in upgrading AirWave over major releases from version 7 to version 8?

You should be fine Steve. Just make sure to do the recommended backups, etc before starting (should always be a best practice, you know). But 7.7.14 to 8.0.8.1 should be fine, though note that 8.0.9 just released.

I am planning an Airwave migration from a physical server (Airwave 7.3.8) to VM (Airwave 8.0.9.2). I plan to do a fresh install on the VM (CentOS 6.6, Airwave 8.0.9.2) with a different IP address and server name. I plan to request a new license. I want to migrate the customer data - devices, VisualRF, custom reports.  

Will the customer data move over from the old version to the new version? Is there another recommended procedure?

Thanks,

Tim

If you backup and restore, data will be moved over.  It is worth mentioning, that you should only backup and restore on the same version.  You could upgrade the physical server to the target version, backup, and then restore to the fresh VM install.

One word about going from a physical server to a VM:  Airwave is very disk and memory intensive, so it always performs better on a physical server, than a VM with the same specs, because it would not have to share resources with other hosts..

Thanks for the quick reply. Because we are going to make a such a large version change, the local SE recommended the fresh install method, than migrate customer data. Primarily so we avoid the multiple upgrades that would be involved. However, if the customer data is at risk in migrating to the new server/version, we might consider the upgrade method.  Do you know if there are Aruba documents to support either or both methods? Thanks again for your support.

What does "migrate data" mean?  Does that mean do a backup and then restore?

Yes, backup and restore. I would backup and restore the data the customer wants moved over to the new Airwave server. The customer would like to migrate devices currently configured in Airwave, VisualRF heatmaps, custom reports. It would be great if we could move history data as well. 

The backup and restore will preserve all of the information you mentioned above.

Great!  Do you know if there are Aruba documents available for the procedures discussed? Specifically, I need to know filenames for the devices, VisualRF data, custom reports. 

There is only a single filename for a backup.  The backup and restore procedures are detailed here;  http://www.arubanetworks.com/techdocs/AirWave_8_0_Web_Help/UserGuide.htm#AWUserGuide/Chapter7_DailyTasks/Backups.htm%3FTocPath%3DPerforming%2520Daily%2520Administration%2520in%2520AMP%7CMonitoring%2520and%2520Supporting%2520AMP%2520with%2520the%2520System%2520Pages%7CBacking%2520Up%2520AirWave%7C_____0

It is still a recommended practice to upgrade the existing hardware AMP to 8.0.8.1, let it run to stabilize, then pull a backup and restore to the new VM. Backing up on 7.7.14 and restoring on an 8.0.8.1 could introduce issues.

@ cjoseph - Thanks for the backup link. I was hoping I could get only specific files for the devices, custom reports, heat maps without getting the AMP IP configuration or other system configuration...

@jhoward - My apologies, I hijacked the original post. I am actually migrating a physcal server (Airwave 7.3.8) to a VM (Airwave 8.0.9.2).

If best practice is to upgrade the exisiting AMP server, then backup/restore to the new AMP server? The customer might choose to stay on the current physical server after upgrading. The idea from our local SE was to avoid the multiple upgrade hops that would be required to go from 7.3.8 to 8.0.9.2. I believe his other thought is we leave the production AMP server as is while bringing up the new AMP server. 

There is only a single backup available.  The AMP ip configuration and license keys are NOT backed up in that.

If the customer wants to stay on the current physical server, they would just need to upgrade once to the target version of code (8.0.9.2 in this circumstance).  

You cannot restore a backup from 7.3.8 and restore to an 8.0.8.1. You will have to upgrade the 7.3.8 server to 8.0.8.1 first and then backup and restore if that is a goal. There are major changes to database structure, etc where the upgrade has to be run to make changes to the database.

Additionally, there would be multiple upgrade steps as only 2 revs per upgrade are supported:

1. 7.3.8 to 7.5.7

2. 7.5.7 to 7.7.14

3. 7.7.14 to 8.0.8.1

Your other option is to just start a completely new server, archive the backup, and if you need the old data for some reason, restore it to an old AMP for investigations. Depending on size of server and number of devices, the upgrades might not be too long. Once a day is safe even for the largest servers, which at the end of the day is not too cumbersome of an upgrade, but waiting that long between upgrades just delays the inevitable pain :)

Good luck!