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This guide is for IT management and system administrators who are responsible for maintaining and upgrading the FactoryLogix system. After you review this guide and implement the recommended best practices, you will achieve the following:
- Efficient preparation of hardware and software components for an upgrade
- Expedited transition from one FactoryLogix software version to the next
- Prevention of downtime associated with inadequate or incomplete upgrade procedures and practices
- Alignment with FactoryLogix release practices
Careful planning is required for the upgrade process to be efficient and have minimal impact on the factory. Be sure to review and follow the best practices in this guide when planning a FactoryLogix upgrade.
Download the software and documentation
The first step to prepare for an upgrade is to download the software installers and documentation from the Support Gateway:
| Best practice | Description |
|---|---|
| Software installers | Both application and server installers are required for all FactoryLogix upgrades. |
| Software release notes | Review the release notes to ensure all required items are included in the release and to understand functional changes to the software release. |
| System specification | Review the current FactoryLogix Recommended system specification to make sure there are no changes required or prerequisites that might affect your upgrade. |
| Training and certification material | When new functionality is added to FactoryLogix, associated training and certification material is posted to the Support Gateway. Be sure to review these materials to help you understand software changes before you upgrade. |
Prepare hardware and infrastructure
During the initial deployment and installation of your FactoryLogix system, Aegis staff complete a thorough commissioning process to ensure your hardware and infrastructure are adequate for the installation and that all necessary components are installed. Refer to your installation and commissioning document for technical details about your installation or contact eSupport@aiscorp.com to request a copy.
We recommend the following best practices to ensure your hardware and infrastructure are suitable for the upgrade.
| Best practice | Description | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Server health check | Whether running physical servers or virtual machines, you should do a thorough check of your server stack to make sure there are no underlying issues or potential problems. Here are the typical items you should check (you can reference these against the latest Recommended system specification ).
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Third party machine vendors and ERP integrations | While Aegis attempts to ensure full backward compatibility with third party connections, it is critical to check all connections to third party machines and software systems before upgrading. A FactoryLogix upgrade may require the machines connected to the system to be running an updated version of their operating software or database schema. ERP connections could have enhanced functionality added as part of the upgrade and may require a change to the programming on the ERP side. You need to plan these changes before the physical upgrade of the system. | |||||||
| License key updates | If Aegis added a new module or created a custom feature for your FactoryLogix system, you may need a new license key code. The key code must be stored and applied to the license key either during the upgrade process or immediately after. | |||||||
| Test system | As with almost all enterprise-level software systems, we recommend you test your system data thoroughly and any specific use cases to ensure the upgrade will not affect production or data collection negatively after the FactoryLogix upgrade. We recommend you use a test system that can run the core components of FactoryLogix, so you can validate the updated software packages. We encourage customers with physical server environments to build small-scale test systems consisting of one or two test servers and several client machines. Virtual environments can have almost complete server replication carried out, enhancing the accuracy of the testing, particularly regarding performance. | |||||||
| Installation documentation | During your initial FactoryLogix installation, the Aegis deployment team provided an installation and commissioning document with all relevant information about your installation. This document contains network information, user names, passwords, and services and ClickOnce installation locations, so it is critical to have this document on hand for every upgrade.
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