RE: OS upgrade planning and ODBC -- MIDRANGE-L

Pete,

Thanks for background.

Two of our apps that use ODBC are mission critical and they MUST work after the upgrade. Awhile back, one ODBC was problematic after an upgrade (a file needed commitment control but wasn't being journaled) and we want avoid issue like that.

Funny that you should mention the ODBC driver for V5R2 - it's what we use for UPS Worldship OBDC. We use it because the V5R3 ODBC driver wouldn't work (or the network guys couldn't get it working) after our last upgrade.

Bryan

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Pete Helgren
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 7:48 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: OS upgrade planning and ODBC

Bryan,

Just to add some other background. I have an application that is
running on Windows NT Server and uses the ODBC drivers for V5R2M0. That
customer has upgraded hardware and OS to over the past many years and,
to be honest with you, we never even gave a thought to the ODBC
components. Completely forgot about them. We never updated them on the
client side and have never had a problem. They are running IBM i 6.1 today.

Granted, the DB has never changed and since the client application is
running NT you can pretty well presume that nothing has changed there. :-)

So, if your client application isn't changing and the DB schema/ I/O
isn't changing, you can have a pretty high level of confidence that all
will be well with the upgrade.

Pete

Burns, Bryan wrote:

Thank you so much Evan, this is very helpful. I think I'll upgrade the drivers and test them on the current databases, as you indicated, because I doubt that IBM or an ISV is going to state support for old drivers because of variables like service levels of the iSeries for Windows package.

Regards,

Bryan Burns

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Evan Harris
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 5:57 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: OS upgrade planning and ODBC

Hi Bryan

If you decide to upgrade the ODBC driver you should be able to do this in
advance and verify that the application continues to work with your current
database before doing the upgrade.

My experience is largely that this simply is not an issue, although as
someone else pointed out, sometimes the SQL packages on the iSeries need to
be deleted in order for the connection to work properly; be sure not to
delete the IBM supplied model packages and back them all up beforehand.
Running STROBJCVN after the upgrade seems to reduce the messing around with
SQLPKG objects after the event.

Generally speaking I attempt to identify these kinds of connections before
the upgrade and then ensure that they are tested immediately after the
upgrade activities have completed. This means I can deal with any issues (if
there are any) before mainstream production re-commences. Normally this is
sufficient for this type of stuff. Dial-up and modem connections are more
likely to require some intervention.

If you want to be *certain* then you'd need to do a test upgrade beforehand
probably on another box and verify that the connections work or if it is
sufficient get the vendors to verify that it will be OK. My guess is their
verification will be wishy-washy enough that you will have to test in
advance or take the risk (minimal in my opinion).

Regards
Evan Harris

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Burns, Bryan
Sent: Thursday, 9 April 2009 1:19 a.m.
To: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: OS upgrade planning and ODBC

What the best practice to follow if you're planning an OS upgrade and want
to ensure that the ODBC connections to your system i will work after the
upgrade? That is, does anyone have something on their OS upgrade checklist
they will share with respect to ODBC?

In our case we have 3 apps doing ODBC: Domino, Cognos and UPS Worldship and
we'll be upgrading to V5R4 from V5R3. Do I just ensure with IBM that the
respective iSeries for Access ODBC driver is compatible with V5R4?

As always, thanks in advance for any replies.

Bryan Burns
iSeries Specialist
ECHO, Incorporated
Lake Zurich, Illinois

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