On 02/20/2015 10:59 AM, Ron Foster wrote:
> We are still in midst of upgrading our last SLES11SP2 system.
>  ...

Hi, Ron, --

I expect you'll want to stay the course w/r/t how you're handing this
(especially since this is the last guest in this round of upgrades).
However ...

Cannot help but think this is a good case for "upgrade by
virtualization". What I mean is, where possible, deploy a new guest
ALREADY AT the target release level, then transfer the user and app
content from the old guest to the new guest. When everything looks good
on the new release, pack-up the old guest and put it on ice, return its
resources (disk space) to the pool.

I've seen a lot of upgrade in place, which makes sense historically, but
not so much in a virtual world. People treat a virtual machine as having
intrinsic value. (I make the same mistake ... too often.) But really,
one of the great things about virtualization is that we can discard a
virtual machine, and should!, when we're done with it.

There are base line requirements (which may not have been done or
perhaps *could* not have been done) to make deploy-a-new-guest kind up
update possible: isolate apps from the op sys, keep the users distinct
from system IDs (and normalize them across all systems), isolate the
data, get a firm handle on configuration.

Ideally, a virtual machine should be something you can drop-in with
whatever op sys and related sofware you need. On top of that run the
apps. Within the apps, use the data.

I hope this helps.



--

Rick Troth
Senior Software Developer

Velocity Software Inc.
Mountain View, CA 94041
Main: (877) 964-8867
Direct: (614) 594-9768
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>

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