Upgrading To SCOM 2016 RTM - 01 - Preparation Is Key!!!

As stated before I would write a new posting about upgrading from SCOM 2012 UR#11 to SCOM 2016 RTM. However as it turns out, only ONE posting isn’t enough. Hence a whole new series about this upgrade.

So this is the first posting of the new series. And yes it start’s with PREPARATION. Without it, changes are the upgrade will fail and there’s is no way back. Ouch! So make sure everything is okay before you start the upgrade.

Preparation = Success?
Wish that was true. But in fact it isn’t. Even when thorough preparations, I’ve seen quite a few upgrades turn sour. So always think twice before upgrading. Sometimes it’s just better to run an alongside migration scenario, where you rollout a whole new SCOM 2016 RTM environment, make the SCOM Agents double homed, a migrate to the new SCOM 2016 RTM MG step by step.

However, when upgrading ALWAYS know what your starting point is. Meaning when the current SCOM 2012 R2 environment is already an upgraded SCOM MG, like SCOM 2012 RTM > SCOM 2012 SP1 > SCOM 2012 R2 (or even SCOM 2012 SP1 > SCOM 2012 R2), my advice is NOT TO UPGRADE but to choose for the alongside migration scenario instead.

Simply because the upgrades which turned sour on me were for 95% SCOM MGs which were upgraded previously. So SCOM MGs like that are simply to be scrapped along the way and to be replaced by a brand new SCOM 2016 RTM MG.

Another reason for this approach is also the underlying Server operating systems, used SQL Server instances and so on. Many times those require upgrades as well, making the SCOM 2016 RTM upgrade an even bigger challenge, with cost and resource requirements which aren’t to be accepted easily.

And on top of that, you can’t give (or you shouldn’t) the guarantee the upgrade itself will run smoothly. Ouch again!

Things to do
Luckily I already blogged about that, so check out this posting of mine: Resources & Tips About Upgrading To SCOM 2016.

Also good steps to take are:

• Install UR#11 for SCOM 2012 R2 before upgrading;
• Check the SCOM 2016 RTM requirements in order to know for sure your SCOM 2012 R2 UR#11 environment fully supports SCOM 2016 RTM;
• On the SCOM MS servers: Install the SCOM 2016 RTM Console requirements BEFORE upgrading to SCOM 2016 RTM;
• Import Wei H Lim’s Upgrade Helper MP for SCOM 2012 R2 to 2016 and USE it!
• READ and EXECUTE the Pre-Upgrade Tasks as stated on the TechNet pages (which are down now?);
• Make backups of the VMs running the SCOM Management Servers, Gateway Servers, SCOM SQL databases so there is a way back;
• Make sure your SCOM 2012 R2 UR#11 environment is healthy before upgrading to SCOM 2016 RTM. Upgrades WON’T fix issues! So fix your environment first before upgrading.

In the next posting in this series I’ll take a deeper dive into some aspects of the preparations. However, I want to do that with the proper TechNet pages being available so I have some official resources to refer to.