Upgrading an AppsAnywhere appliance

AppsAnywhere 3.0 and older

This article describes the the legacy upgrade process which requires deploying new virtual appliance images.

A new In-place upgrade process is available for when upgrading from AppsAnywhere 3.1 and above.

Overview

New releases of AppsAnywhere and Analytics are provided as a virtual appliance.

To upgrade, import the latest version of the virtual appliance to create new servers.

Once your new servers are configured, the AppsAnywhere team will transfer service to the new servers during an agreed upgrade window.

Your existing servers remain operational until the upgrade window, at which point the new servers will take over delivery of your app portal.

Once service is transferred to new servers, old servers can be retired.

This process refers exclusively to AppsAnywhere and Analytics servers. Cloudpaging and Parallels RAS servers are upgraded in-situ.

AppsAnywhere Cloud Customers

Instances hosted on AppsAnywhere Cloud will be upgraded by AppsAnywhere.

• Upgrades will be applied within 6 months of release

• Notice will be provided 2 weeks in advance of an upgrade being applied

Planning an upgrade Window

An upgrade window will be scheduled once all of the prerequisites have been confirmed.

During the upgrade window your AppsAnywhere service will be temporarily unavailable for a short time as existing AppsAnywhere configuration is automatically transferred from current to new servers.

Unfortunately this is unavoidable, so AppsAnywhere Support will make every effort to reduce the length of time that the service is offline.

Customers should notify service users of:

• Service at Risk Period – number of AppsAnywhere servers x 20 minutes

• Service Downtime – starting approximately 5 minutes in and lasting approximately 30 minutes (until the first server in the pool has been upgraded)

When upgrading Analytics, the following apply:

• Service at Risk Period – 20 minutes

• Service Downtime – None

The timing of an upgrade usually depends on whether downtime is required and your own institutional policy restrictions or procedural requirements. AppsAnywhere recommend that upgrades are undertaken during a period when usage is at a minimum, to minimize any impact to service users.

Upgrades can be scheduled at any time during AppsAnywhere Support business hours. You can also request that an upgrade take place outside of normal support hours in your region (taking advantage of our support personnel in different time zones) and we will aim to meet your request where staff availability permits.

On-premises upgrade dates cannot be confirmed until we've wrapped up all the necessary prep work and given it the green light from our AppsAnywhere Support team.

Once everything's good to go, we'll share a scheduling link with you. If you try to schedule upgrades before we finish the prep, we might need to reschedule, so it's best to wait until we give the all-clear. Thanks for your understanding!

Preparing to Upgrade

This section only applies to customers hosting AppsAnywhere on-premise

The current appliance is available to download from Latest Releases within the AppsAnywhere support portal.

You will need to create the same number of new servers, to match the number of existing AppsAnywhere servers that you currently have.

The high-level process is as follows:

1. Request the upgrade prerequisites from AppsAnywhere Support.

2. Deploy the latest virtual appliance, once for each server required

3. Complete first-time configuration for each new appliance based server

4. Ensure that the Connectivity Requirements are in place.

5. Provide details of the prerequisites to the AppsAnywhere team and schedule a prerequisite check.

6. Once the prerequisites are complete, an upgrade scheduling link will be provided.

Your existing database (and load balancing solution) will continue to be used. The database schema is updated by the AppsAnywhere team during the upgrade window.

Pre-upgrade Requirements

This section only applies to customers hosting AppsAnywhere on-premise

Customer Contacts

Most of the upgrade procedure will be carried out by AppsAnywhere Support.

However, the following customer personnel will need to be involved and available for the duration of migration window:

• AppsAnywhere administrator

• Load Balancer administrator

Contact details must be provided for at least one lead customer contact.

It is also advisable that the following customer personal can be contacted in case of any issues:

• Hypervisor / server administrator

• Database administrator

• Network administrator

• Active Directory administrator

Remote Access

AppsAnywhere Support will require remote access to all AppsAnywhere servers for the duration of the upgrade procedure.

Test Machine

To confirm that migration is successful, AppsAnywhere Support will need a test user account and access to a test machine.

This is used to verify that single-sign on is working and that apps can be launched successfully.

Backups

A full backup of the AppsAnywhere database must be taken prior to upgrade.

Pre-existing AppsAnywhere servers will not be changed, though it is generally good practise to take server snapshots prior to upgrades.

Upgrade Procedure

This section only applies to customers hosting AppsAnywhere on-premise

Ahead of the upgrade AppsAnywhere Support will confirm that all prerequisites are in place.

We will also establish a line of communication with your AppsAnywhere administrator, to be maintained through the upgrade process.

Your AppsAnywhere administrator will need to coordinate to ensure that the customer actions noted in the below table are carried out promptly.

Functionality Tests

During upgrades, services will be tested (including via the load balancer) to confirm functionality.

Tests will be performed from the designated test machine and include:

1. Login (manual and SSO).

2. Validation and basic portal functions.

3. Launch of applications (including Cloudpaging and Parallels RAS where applicable).

4. Access to the admin interface and confirmation of version numbers.

5. Confirmation that Analytics Dashboards and Explores load

Issues During Upgrade

AppsAnywhere Support will keep you informed should there be any issues during the upgrade procedure.

The first action will be to review the deployment logs which detail each step of the process along with any errors that may have occurred.

In almost every case, the deployment logs provide enough information relating to a failure for the issue to be resolved and for the upgrade to be completed successfully.

1. Review deployment logs for errors

2. Correct cause of errors where possible

3. Complete the upgrade procedure

If there is a problem during the upgrade window (and there is insufficient time remaining to investigate), AppsAnywhere Support will discuss this with you and ask for authorization to commence rollback procedures.

Rollback Procedure

This section only applies to customers hosting AppsAnywhere on-premise

There are two main scenarios in which a rollback is advisable:

1. A significant problem is encountered during the upgrade procedure and the remaining window is unlikely to allow for investigation and resolution.

2. Upgrade is completed but AppsAnywhere does not function as desired, as determined by the post-upgrade functionality tests.

In either of these cases, service can be reverted to your pre-existing AppsAnywhere servers, which remain unchanged.

Retiring Old Servers

This section only applies to customers hosting AppsAnywhere on-premise

AppsAnywhere recommend that you retain the database backup and pre-existing AppsAnywhere servers (e.g. as a backup or powered down) for 2 days following an upgrade.

In the unlikely event that a critical issue arises, you then have the option to rollback, or to investigate the previous service state.

Assuming there are no issues, you can then retire your old servers and delete previous backups.