Upgrading Your System

You can upgrade your system using the vFire Core Patch Tool. It is recommended that you read this section fully before applying a patch.

Prior to upgrading a live Production system, it is recommended as common business process, to replicate the Production system to a lower environment and perform the upgrade on the replicated system. For instructions refer to Copying the Production System to a Test Environment.

Enhanced Upgrade Process

Upgrading (also sometimes known as patching) your vFire Core System can be very time consuming for system owners. Enhancements introduced in 9.2.1 have sped up this process.

The automated upgrade of a system requires a series of actions which copy physical files and run database scripts (which is the most time consuming component). In order to improve the speed of upgrading, the upgrade process was changed in 9.2.1 so that only an incremental upgrade process will run, making only the changes required by the new version and removing redundant steps in the schema upgrade in the database scripts. The result of this is that the upgrade process is faster and it is easier to see specifically what is being updated in each version.

The first time you upgrade to a 9.2 version, the current patch process will be executed to bring the system to 9.2.0 and then the incremental process will be used onwards. Upgrading from 9.0.X or 9.1.X to 9.2.1 will still take a similar time to upgrade as previous upgrades. Upgrading from 9.2.0 to 9.2.1 or any future higher version will be much faster.

File Changes

Prior to 9.2.1, the upgrade files were located in the Config directory (typically c:\Program Files\Alemba\vFire\System1\Config. There is now a new directory underneath the existing config directory named 9201 (for 9.2.1) for the changes to this specific version. An XML file defines how these scripts are run. There is a new (additional) file format for running scripts from the upgrade tool. Script files can either be run as an existing SCP file or as a new XML format.

Before you start

Create a backup of your databases before upgrading as the Patch Tool will not backup your database.

Backup your system files and registry settings as the Patch Tool will not create a backup. Ideally, create a snapshot or backup of the virtual web server, enabling a swift and simple rollback should the need arise.

Close the vFire Core Server Console and ensure that you are not logged in before running the upgrade otherwise an error will occur.

If you are performing an upgrade from a version lower than 9.2.0, it will invalidate your existing license key. You must have an updated license key to run vFire Core. Contact Alemba Support for more details if necessary.

Select the appropriate link to view a PDF version of the 9.11 Prerequisites, the Installation Guide, or the Upgrade Guide .

  1. Ensure that your system meets the prerequisites outlined in the Prerequisites Guide.
  2. Familiarize yourself with the information in the Installing or Patching section, in Installing or Patching.
  3. Install the vFire Patch Tool (Installing the Patch Tool). If you have already installed it, simply run through the wizard again.
  4. Create a backup as described in Creating a Backup.
  5. Carry out a Screen Pre-upgrade, if necessary, as described in Screens Pre-Upgrade.
  6. Run the vFire Patch Tool, as described in Running the vFire Patch Tool.
  7. Apply the license key, if necessary, as described in Running the vFire Patch Tool.
  8. Should the need arise, roll back the upgrade as described in Rolling Back the Upgrade

If you are using vFire Officer & Portal, you must disable the constraints before upgrading vFire Core, and enable them again when the upgrade is complete. You then need to upgrade Officer & Portal to ensure that you have a compatible version. See the technical note on the website.

Upgrading to 9.3 or above

This section describes extra steps required after upgrading to vFire 9.3 and higher, if the features and functions listed below were in use prior to upgrade.

vFire Officer App

ClosedIf the vFire app is enabled in your environment, it needs to be re-enabled after upgrading to 9.3 by re-configuring the web.config file.
  1. Download the vFire Core 9.2.1 mobile hotfix pack which contains all the necessary files. Alemba Support will provide you with this.
  2. Extract the contents.
  3. Stop all vFire Core services. You will need to exit vFire Core, stop all vFire Core services and restart IIS.
  4. Open the folder which contains your vFire Core installation.

    5. If you installed 9.2 from a clean install, the location will be C:\Program Files (x86)\Alemba\vFire

    If you upgraded vFire Core from an older version (pre 9.2), the location will be C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Service Manager

    The location may be different if you have used customized install locations.

  5. In the mobile pack, navigate to the RootFiles subdirectory and copy:

    6. Infra.Rules.dll

    to:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Alemba\vFire

    (or the equivalent location if your settings are customized or showing older file names). You will be prompted to replace the existing file. Confirm the replacement.

  6. In the mobile pack, navigate to the System Files\Bin subdirectory and copy the following:

    7. Infra.API.dll

    Infra.Rules.dll

    to:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Alemba\vFire\System1\Bin

    (or the equivalent location if your settings are customized or showing older file names). You will be prompted to replace the existing files. Confirm the replacements.

  7. In the mobile pack, navigate to the SystemFiles\Config subdirectory and copy:

    8. queries-mobile.sql

    to:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Alemba\vFire\System1\Config

    (or the equivalent location if your settings are customized or showing older file names). You will be prompted to replace the existing file. Confirm the replacement.

  8. In the mobile pack, navigate to the SystemFiles\Config\90201 subdirectory, and copy:

    9. patch-default-values.xml

    to:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Alemba\vFire\System1\Config\90201

    (or the equivalent location if your settings are customized or showing older file names)

  9. In C:\Program Files (x86)\Alemba\vFire (or equivalent), select serverconsole.msc to open the Server Console.
  10. Select the web server that you are configuring. (In our example, it is System1.)
  11. Select Run Custom SQL Script from beneath Database Tasks in the Actions menu on the right of the window.

  12. This opens the Run Custom SQL Script window. Navigate to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Alemba\vFire\System1\Config\90201 folder if necessary.
  13. The file type at the bottom of the window will be showing ‘Script File (*.scp)’ change this to XML File (*.xml) to display xml files.
  14. Select patch-default-values.xml. This will run the script.

  15. When this is complete, you will be asked if you want to run any more scripts. Select .
  16. The database will update.

  17. Close the Server Console when this is complete. Select to save settings.

  18. You will now need to restart the vFire Services. To do this, open the Task Manager and select the Services tab. Scroll down to locate the vFire Services if necessary.

  19. Right click and select start for each of the vFire services.

Reminder Columns on Calls Outstanding

If you are using reminder columns and are upgrading to 9.6 or above, you will need to remove and re-add them to your column configs after upgrading.

Search Fields on vFire Self Service Screens

After upgrading, existing Multi Value search fields that reference External Suppliers, and existing search fields that reference SLA, OLA, and UC Agreements, may stop working on Self Service submissions screens. These fields need to be removed and re-applied to the screen after the upgrade using Designer.

Personalized Column Configurations

Personalized column selections on the following search windows will need to be reconfigured after upgrade. Column selections on these search windows are reset to default as a result of the enhancement in 9.3.0 which extends the Configurable Column and Advanced Search functionality to these searches. Personalized columns will need to be reconfigured after upgrade.

Affected search windows: Organizations, Locations, Subscriber Groups, Contracts, Cost Centers, Jurisdictions, Knowledge Admin, Agreements, Bulletin Administration.

Integration Connectors

Connectors have been updated for vFire Core 9.3. Your existing integration settings will continue to function after upgrading to 9.3, with no additional steps required.

The exception is existing SAM connectors. If you are integrating with SAM, see below to learn more.

All 18 connector files now come included with the vFire Core software, not just the free connectors. There has been no change to the licensing model for connectors. If you want to add a licensed connector to your integration platform, you no longer need to download the files, however you still need to purchase a license key.

SAM Connector

The minimum version of Java required for this integration is Java 8 64-bit. After upgrading to vFire 9.3, follow these steps:

  1. Install Java Runtime Environment 8 for 64-bit on the vFire server. You can download JRE from the Java website (Windows x64 version): http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/
  2. Copy the file Infra.Connector.Ionix.SAM.DomainManager.jar from the vFire Core application root folder to the folder on the system environment variable CLASSPATH that was set during the initial SAM connector install.

Creating a Backup

Before upgrading you should create a backup so that the upgrade can be rolled back should the need arise.

For virtual servers

Create a snapshot or backup of the virtual web server and of the virtual database server.

For physical servers

  1. Stop the vFire 9 Services. This can be done by stopping the vFire 9 Administration Service.
  2. Stop the vFire application pools and websites.
  3. Create a backup of the system's database.
  4. Create a backup of the vFire registry keys (e.g.: export to file HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alemba\vFireCore)
  5. Create a folder in the same location as the extracted zip file and backup the system directory (e.g.: C:\Program Files\Alemba\vFire\System1) and the files in the vFire directory.

    6. Create a new folder C:\Alemba\944Backup:

Rolling Back the Upgrade

If you need to rollback the upgrade and return your system to its previous version:

For virtual servers

Restore the web server and database server to the snapshot or backup you took prior to applying the upgrade.

For physical servers

  1. Stop all vFire 9 Services. This can be done by stopping the vFire 9 Administration Service.
  2. Stop the vFire application pools and websites.
  3. Restore the system directory and files from the backup location you created prior to upgrading.
  4. Restore the database from the backup.
  5. Restore the registry keys from the backup.
  6. Restart the vFire 9 services.
  7. Restart the vFire website and application pool (IISreset)