Previous | Table of Contents | Next |
Man Hours. Each production server upgraded from Vines 4.11(5) to Vines 5.52(5) needed two RTC network engineers, each working four to six hours (five hours, average) of overtime per server if the following methodology were used. If a figure of $17 per hour for labor costs is used, each server would cost approximately $170 to upgrade. If the 329 servers were upgraded at that price, the labor cost to upgrade all the servers was $55,930. The total costs are summarized in Exhibit 1.
All the first-line network engineers were trained on the Vines 5.52(5) operating system first and then were involved in testing specific aspects of the operating system at each site. The results were communicated via Lotus notes, videoconferences, and face- to- face roundtable meetings.
The upgrade methodology was tested, refined, and then taught to the staff members who would actually be doing the upgrades. The modeling and refinement activity was particularly valuable in that it gave the staff time to practice before operating on live servers and corporate data. These practice sessions were the greatest insurance policy available in this process. In fact, the real success for the project began in these early planning sessions.
Each type of production server, Compaq SystemPro and Banyan CNS, needed upgrading to Vines 5.52(5). Every server required the internal hard drives be reformatted to take advantage of the S10 file format before having the data restored from tape. Within the restore-from-tape process, all the files needed the ARLs converted to the new 5.52(5) format.
The overall upgrade approach to both servers was the same: to build a like server, either a SystemPro or CNS, off line to replace the production server. By starting on Monday morning, an identical Banyan server could be built, tested, and ready for live data to be restored beginning at 5:00 PM on Friday. Typically, a server was fully tested and ready for the final data files by Wednesday night or Thursday morning. The offline servers were built during regular business hours, so overtime was needed only on Friday night, for the last stage of the conversion process.
The SystemPros were upgraded with Intel 486 processor boards, new ROM chips, and new 510M byte hard drives array pairs and SCSI II controller cards. The upgrade process was greatly hindered by these extra variables, because of a 50% failure rate with the Seagate 510 drive array pairs. Not all SystemPro hard drives were upgraded, and the existing Conner 210 drive array pairs and SCSI I controller cards were reused. In each configuration, the Compaq SystemPro was left to run the comprehensive drive array and to run controller card diagnostic tests for 24 to 48 hours before being formatted with the S10 file format under Banyan Vines 5.52(5). Although this was a time-consuming action, the servers that made it into production were very reliable.
Additionally, any Token Ring or Ethernet NIC that were not 32-bit Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) were replaced with 32-bit EISA boards for improved performance.
The Banyan CNS servers, for the most part, had a like configuration. Each was a 386 class machine with an 80M byte drive as drive 0, a 330M byte drive for drive 1, and a 330M byte drive for drive 2. The new 5.52(5) operating system would just fit on drive 0, but that left no room for file swap space, for growth in the internal routing table, or for E-mail service. The upgrade position was to remove the 80M byte drive and replace it with the 300M byte drive in slot 3. A 1.3G byte was purchased for each CNS for installation as the third drive. All applications, all noncore Banyan services, and all data are placed on this drive. All core Banyan services were installed by default onto the first drive, and the 330M bytes provided ample room. For the most part, the second drive (a 330Mbyte hard drive) was left for growth but was largely unused. No CNS servers were scheduled for upgrades with 486 processors.
The beginning process was the same for each style of server. Diagnostics were run on each; each drive was formatted multiple times (time permitting); and the Banyan Vines operating system was loaded. At this point, the Banyan server key on the production server was carefully removed and placed on the off line server. The off line server was brought up and given the same name as the production server. The identity of the new 5.52(5) server was critical and required the server key to build its internal routing tables. It was essential that the two servers not be connected to the network at the same time.
Once the new server had been brought up and named properly, it needed to be patched with a total of 10 Banyan patches (i.e., fixes, to be installed for full functionality) before anything could be done. The order of patch installation was important, and several versions were tried and discarded before the list was stable. However, some patches were more trouble than the problems they fixed even having to be replaced only hours after they had been applied. Patches were installed after the data was loaded and converted as well as before. Both methodologies worked.
The offline Vines 5.52(5) server targeted to replace the production server then had all the same services created using the same naming convention for file restoration and conversion. It is important to note that if a file service was not within the naming standards, the name was converted.
Print and File Services. All print services were rebuilt, as opposed to restored. The new print services at the FDIC were different enough to warrant setting up the RTC services from scratch. The Banyan operating system also would not permit moving and converting the print services. Print services were created on the target server during the week.
All file services were created on the target server to match the production server, and each service containing data was moved individually and converted. The applications file service was restored from the standard application tape that was created at the beginning of the upgrade process. Because this was a static file system, meaning that usually no changes to the applications occurred, this service could also be restored. After the first server was converted, a Vines 5.52(5) tape backup of the applications was created and then used for restoring target servers for upgrades. This process saved time converting ARLs. The ARLs, however, still needed to be reworked to be server specific so the restore was not as trouble free as it sounds.
Any other service on the production server, such as asynchronous dial-in, 3270 SNA service, server to server, and WAN links, were also created and set up on the target server before Friday evening.
Previous | Table of Contents | Next |