Upgrading from an Earlier Release

There are two ways in which you can upgrade to Reality V15.4:

• If you have a Windows system with Reality Release 8.0 or later, you can upgrade directly to V15.4 (see Software Upgrade).

  Note

  You can run two versions of Reality on a host at the same time - the latest installed version and the previous version. You cannot run V15.4 together with V9.1 or any earlier version.

• If you have a Series 18/19 system, or a UNIX system with RealityX, you might wish to replace your old system with a new Windows system with Reality V15.4 (hardware upgrade). To do this, you will need to install Reality V15.4 on the new system and then transfer your database(s) from the old system to the new. For details, see the separate document Transferring a Database.

  Note

  To ensure that your databases operate at maximum efficiency, you should periodically save the files to tape and then restore to a new database. It can be convenient to carry this out when upgrading the Reality software.

Software upgrade

Pre-upgrade

1. Make sure users are logged off and prevented logging into all databases while administration work is carried out. You can use lockdbase for each database at host command level or INHIBIT-LOGONS from within each database. Only when the upgrade is complete and you want users to login in again should you enable logons.

2. Install the latest Reality updates for the release you are currently running; see Installing Updates.

3. Back up the Drive:\realman host folder (where Drive is the drive on which Reality is installed).

4. Use the regedit host utility to export the NEC branch of the Registry:

   32-bit hosts HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NorthgateIS.

   64-bit hosts HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\NorthgateIS.

   Back up the export file.

5. For each Reality database:

   • Save to elsewhere in the database any system file items that you have customised. Files that might have been customised include SYSPROG-PL, PROCLIB, BP, SYSBP, SYSBP.MSGS, SYSPL, SYS.BASLIB, BASIC-COMPILERS and NEWAC.

   • Ensure that all users are logged off.

   • Carry out FILE-SAVE and VERIFY-SAVE.

     Caution

     These saves should be retained indefinitely; at least until the next version or release upgrade.

     Note

     The use of Fast Save, using a Physical Backup, can only be used when moving to the same host platform byte ordering (for example, from Intel to Intel, or from SPARC to SPARC), and where source and destination versions of Reality support this feature. A standard FILE-SAVE should be used if possible. In all cases, a FILE-SAVE and a VERIFY-SAVE must be carried out.

   • Save the contents of the configs host folder.

6. If Transaction handling or any other Resilience feature is in use, a RawLog is required:

   • If the new release will replace the current release, the current RawLog can be used. Save the Windows file Drive:\Realman\RealityVersion\bin\RawLog (where Drive is the drive on which Reality is installed and RealityVersion is the version number of the current Reality release).
   • If V15.4 is to be used in parallel with the previous release, a new RawLog must be created after V15.4 is installed.

7. Save any customised configuration files. These are located in the Windows folder Drive:\Realman\RealityVersion\files (where Drive is the drive on which Reality is installed and RealityVersion is the version number of the current Reality release).

8. Shut down the Reality remote tape server if you have this installed (run the command Realrts -e).

Installing the new release

Follow the Custom procedure described in the section Loading the Reality Software. On the Installation Menus, components are marked as Upgrade if an earlier version of that component is installed and can be upgraded, or as Overwrite if the installed version is the same as the version in the installation package.

The installation program detects the version(s) of Reality currently installed on your system and indicates the current default (live) version. You are asked if you want to remove the previous version(s).

When installation of V15.4 is complete, you are given the option to make this the default version of Reality. It is recommended that you click No at this point - you can make V15.4 live once configuration is complete (see Changing the Live version).

Then do the following:

1. Restore any customised configuration, as saved in step 6 of the previous section, by editing the configuration files in the Windows folder Drive:\realman\RealityVersion\files (where Drive is the disk on which Reality is installed and RealityVersion is the version number of the current Reality release).

2. If Transaction Handling or any other Resilience feature is in use, you will need to remake the rawlog:

   • If this version is to replace the previous version, the current RawLog can be used. Copy the rawlog configuration file saved in step 5 of the previous section into the folder Drive:\Realman\RealityVersion\bin\RawLog (where Drive is the drive on which Reality is installed and RealityVersion is the version number of the current Reality release). Then stop and restart the Reality services.

   • If this release is to run in parallel with the previous release, a new RawLog must be created - see Configuring Resilience Features.

Post-upgrade

On each Reality database, log on to the database as the database owner and do the following:

1. Run INHIBIT-LOGONS *

2. If applicable, run TL-STOP to stop Transaction handling.

3. If upgrading from a version earlier than Reality V9.1, load the system tools. Enter the following commands:

   T-DEVICE 4 %REALROOT%\files\upgfile.rti
   ASSIGN = TAPE 4
   T-REW
   INSTALL

   Follow the prompts to install the upgrade bootstrap. Then enter:

   CLEAR-ASSIGN

4. Run SYS-UPDATE, entering the release of Reality from which you are upgrading (see SYS-UPDATE Details).

   Note

   For information about any error messages displayed, see SYS-UPDATE Details.

5. Log into the database and integrate any customised changes made in SYSPROG-PL, PROCLIB, BP, SYSBP, SYSBP.MSGS, etc. (saved in Pre-upgrade step 4). Note that customised changes to NEWAC must be moved to the USER data section of that file.

6. Carry out FILE-SAVEand VERIFY-SAVE.

7. Start Transaction Processing, if applicable.

8. Run ENABLE-LOGONS *

If you shut down the Reality remote tape server before upgrading, restart it by running the command Realrts -s.

SYS-UPDATE Details

This section gives details of the prompts you might see when running the SYS-UPDATE utility from TCL.

Error messages

The first time you run SYS-UPDATE after upgrading, you may see error messages caused by underlying changes to Reality - for example, ERRMSG [2461]. These do not affect the upgrade and can be ignored. The next time you run SYS-UPDATE these initial errors should not be repeated. Any recurrent error messages should be reported to NEC Software Solutions.

Machine type

When you make a selection on the System Conversion Facility screen, the following prompt is displayed:

Restore from a different machine type? (Y/N) :

At this prompt enter Y if you are restoring from a save from a system with a different binary format; otherwise, enter N. This is to indicate to the update process that the byte order of the binary data has changed, enabling it to correctly update the system. The systems on which Reality is supported have the following binary formats:

Therefore, when restoring a save from a Solaris system onto a Windows system, for example, enter N. If the platform is the same - for example, from one Windows system to another- enter N.

During the SYS-UPDATE procedure, cataloged DataBasic programs in the POINTER-FILE will be upgraded if necessary. Two accounts are also populated during this procedure: BASIC.CONVERSION and UPGRADE.ACCOUNT. These two accounts are quite large and will only be required if a problem had occurred during the SYS-UPDATE. An explanation of this process is given in the separate document Transferring a Database.

DataBasic conversion

If the database being upgraded is a release prior to RealityX 4.0 or ROS 7.2, the DataBasic object code will be converted. For more information, see the separate document Transferring a Database.

Changing lower-case to upper-case dates

From RealityX 5.0 onwards, Reality has used mixed-case month names. If you have older applications that rely on having all upper case month names for date verification, you will have to force dates into upper case. This is described in the separate document Transferring a Database.

Upgrading FailSafe

Please refer to the Resilience section of the on-line documentation.

Installing Database Overlays

If you want to install database overlays - for example, ALL, RPL, or Wordmate - you should install these by running CDINSTALL from within Reality.

Remote Tape Server

It is recommended that you reinstall the Remote Tape server on all systems that provide this service.

Running multiple versions of Reality

You can run different versions of Reality on the same system provided the system has enough disk space. In addition to the different versions of the Reality software, if you are using transaction handling or any other resilience feature, you will require a separate rawlog for each version.

Running Reality locally

To run a version of Reality other than the live version locally, enter the following at the command prompt:

realroot n.n

where n.n is the version number of the required version. Then start the Reality services by entering:

realserv -s

You can then run Reality in the normal way.

Running Reality remotely

When connecting to a Reality database via the network (whether locally or remotely), you will automatically use the Reality version specified using netadmin.

Changing the Live version

You can change the live version of the Reality as follows:

1. Log on as an administrator and start the Control Panel.

2. Select Add or Remove Programs or Programs and Features (depending on your version of Windows).

3. Select Reality from the list of programs and click Change/Remove.

4. Select the version you want to make live from the list and click the Set Default button. Follow the prompts that appear.

   Note

   This dialog also allows you to remove earlier versions of Reality and to install additional software keys.

5. Wait until the Reality services have been restarted before closing the dialog. Then log off and on again to refresh the environment variables.