Preparing to upgrade a geodatabase in Informix

When you upgrade any enterprise system, including a geodatabase, plan ahead. Test the new version on a development or test server to ensure that it works with all your client applications.

When you have determined that the new system works the way you expected, schedule the upgrade; be sure the necessary staff are available to perform the upgrade and that they have the permissions necessary to complete their assigned tasks.

Note:

• You cannot upgrade directly to ArcSDE 10 for Informix from any ArcSDE release prior to 9.3. To upgrade from a release prior to 9.3, you must first upgrade the geodatabase to 9.3 or 9.3.1, then upgrade to ArcSDE 10.
• Upgrades from beta versions of the software are not supported.
• If the geodatabase is part of a replica, you must upgrade both the parent and child geodatabase before synchronizing.
• There is no formal mechanism to downgrade a geodatabase to a previous version. If after upgrading to a newer version you want to downgrade the geodatabase, you must restore the old database from backup.
• Once a geodatabase has been upgraded, previous versions of ArcGIS will be unable to open it since older versions of ArcGIS cannot read newer versions of the geodatabase.

You must also complete the following steps before you upgrade your geodatabase in Informix:

Steps:

1. Check the ArcGIS Resource Center to be sure that your system meets the minimum requirements.
2. Make sure that either the Informix Basic Text Search (BTS) or Excalibur Text Search (ETX) DataBlade Module is registered in the geodatabase.
3. You must also have the following DBTUNE parameters (added at the ArcSDE 9.3 release) in your DBTUNE table, and they must be configured as described in Informix DBTUNE configuration parameters: XML_IDX_FULLTEXT_TYPE, XML_IDX_FULLTEXT_PARAMS, and XML_IDX_FULLTEXT_STORAGE.
The previous two steps are needed to use ArcSDE XML columns in the geodatabase system tables.
4. Create a backup of the database.
5. For IBM AIX users only: If you are installing on AIX, it is recommended that you run slibclean before upgrading or installing ArcSDE to clear inactive libraries from memory. Stop your current ArcSDE service and run slibclean as the root user. See your AIX system administrator documentation for more information on the slibclean command.
6. Remove any custom functionality you may have added to the ArcSDE geodatabase system tables outside ArcGIS such as triggers or additional indexes.

   The upgrade procedure cannot be aware of customizations you make to the system tables. If such customizations prevent the alteration of a system table's schema, the upgrade will fail.

7. The informix user must grant dba privileges to the sde user account for the ArcSDE database through dbaccess.

   If you do not grant the required privileges, there will be problems during the upgrade procedure as well as overall product performance.

   The informix user would issue the following command to grant dba privileges to the sde user:

   dbaccess <ArcSDE_Database>
   Query-language-->New-->
   grant dba to sde
   Run

8. Install the current release of the ArcGIS client (ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Engine runtime, or ArcGIS Server Standard or Advanced) on a computer that can directly connect to the geodatabase to perform the upgrade.
9. Make sure that the Informix client is installed and configured on the computer where the ArcGIS client is installed.

   This is required because you must make a direct connection to the geodatabase to upgrade it. See Setting up a direct connection to Informix, Setting up the Informix Setnet 32 application, and Setting up an ODBC data source for Informix on Windows for instructions.

10. Make sure that there are no users connected to the geodatabase.

    You can use the sdemon command to check this. See Displaying connected sessions for instructions.

11. Shut down any ArcSDE services that are running using the sdemon –o shutdown command. Or if the service is running on a Windows server, you can stop the service on the Windows Services interface instead of using the sdemon command.

    See the command syntax in the ArcSDE Administration Command Reference for more information on the sdemon command.

12. Uninstall the old release of ArcSDE. See either Uninstalling ArcSDE from Windows or Uninstalling ArcSDE from Linux or UNIX for instructions.
13. In Windows, you are prompted to delete the ArcSDE services during the uninstallation process if any are running. Click Yes to delete the service if you are installing a new release of ArcSDE. If you are installing a service pack or patch, you can click No and reuse the service unless the service pack or patch instructions specify that you must re-create the service. (For example, if the service pack or patch fixes something in the service functionality, you most likely need to re-create it.)
14. Install the new release of ArcSDE.

    On Windows operating systems, do not run the Post Installation wizard. The Post Installation wizard is for new installations only.

The geodatabase is now ready to be upgraded. You can use the Upgrade Geodatabase tool in ArcGIS Desktop or a Python script run on the ArcGIS client computer.