administrator

During the physical phase of the upgrade, we recommend using the following best practices to help prevent post-upgrade issues and data loss. You can apply these best practices to any system. We recommend you enhance your upgrade practices to suit your unique business needs.

Database backup

Important

Performing a database backup is the single most critical action required before upgrading any production system!

Customers normally have scheduled overnight backups available, but there may be a significant time gap between the last backup and the upgrade. On systems with high transactional loads, many thousands of records may have run through the system during that time and those records would be missing from the backup.

We recommend that you perform a backup of the database manually immediately before starting the physical upgrade (for MES systems, when the shop floor activity within the system has stopped). You can mitigate any major malfunction that causes the upgraded software to corrupt the production database by having the backup ready to apply as soon as the issue is fixed, or the system is rolled back.

General information about the installers

Aegis installers are built using InstallShield technology and are designed to either upgrade a current installation or remove the previous installation files and install from scratch. The installers check the system for necessary components and signal the host system to download and install them if they are missing. You need to be aware of this requirement and have all required components such as .NET Framework on hand if your system blocks this activity. If you use third-party tools that execute our MSI, you will have to install any missing required components manually.

Sever-side upgrade

Before starting the server-side upgrade, ensure you have your FactoryLogix system's installation and commissioning document on hand. The document contains necessary information about the locations of Aegis services and the necessary user account information to access the different parts of the system. Use the following best practices while following the technical guide for the upgrade process (located on the Support Gateway).

Make sure that the user logging onto the system to perform the upgrade has Administrator rights to that system. If not, some components and services may not be installed with the correct permissions and folder access.

Using your installation and commissioning document as a guide, place the FactoryLogix Server_x.x.x.x.exe installer onto each server carrying Aegis services so that the installer can be run locally.

Aegis services: Ensure all service logon accounts are noted and that the services are stopped before the upgrade begins. You can find the service installation locations in your installation and commissioning document, but typically they are located on the Application, xLink and xTend servers.

Before starting the upgrade, make sure your servers are up to date and that if the software requires a server reboot during the installation, no issues will occur.

Verify whether the database will require a schema upgrade after the upgrade is completed. (This information can be found on the Support Gateway when downloading the software installers.)

If you are using ClickOnce for the end user client installations, verify that the packages were added to the source folder locations—especially if the location specified is a location other than the default. Failure to do this will mean the clients will not upgrade and will not be able to access the upgraded server platform.

We recommend that you have an installation of the NPI and Production client applications running on the server so that post installation validation can occur before the main work of upgrading the clients begins.

Client installation

Unlike server-side installations, you can manage client installations using two methods:

Full installation is achieved in the same way as the server. You place the FactoryLogix Application_8.x.x.x.exe on each client machine and run using an Administrator login.
For application installations, Aegis utilizes ClickOnce technology. If these are in use, the client machines will upgrade automatically the next time a user logs into the system. If they do not and you can no longer access the system, either the ClickOnce installers were not installed or the packages were not moved to the correct locations.

Validate the installation

Once the physical upgrade process is completed, you should perform a validation check before production begins again. You can perform as many validations as necessary to ensure the upgrade was successful. Aegis recommends the following best practices as a base for validation:

Client access
Open the NPI or Production client application on the server and ensure you can log in (verify that the software is at the correct version before logging in). Repeat the process for a remote client.
xTend Integrations
Verify that you can view the integration settings, the service is running, and you can pass a data set through the integrations to ensure data is moved properly from system to system.
xLink machine connections
Verify that you can open settings in the NPI client application and that the machines are connected and communicating with the system. Check file-based adapters manually before production startup—verify real-time connections as soon as production resumes.
Performance
You should also monitor performance of the clients from an end user standpoint and resource performance on the server side. Investigate any significant decrease in performance and report it to Aegis immediately.

Start production

When you are satisfied with the upgrade, you can begin to work with the FactoryLogix system again and start production using the system. During the hours after the upgrade, monitor the system closely for signs of any issues that might be related to a bug or a drop in system performance and report these issues to Aegis immediately.

FactoryLogix Learning

Perform the upgrade