Upgrading From an Earlier Version of ActiveMatrix BPM

You can upgrade directly to version 4.3 of ActiveMatrix BPM from the following earlier versions:

  • 3.1
  • 4.0
  • 4.1
  • 4.2

If you wish to upgrade to version 4.3 from a pre-3.1 version of ActiveMatrix BPM, you must first upgrade your system to one of the versions listed above. Refer to the ActiveMatrix BPM Installation and Configuration guide for that version for more information.

Upgrade Overview

An ActiveMatrix BPM system can range in scale from a basic, single machine system to a distributed, multi-machine system involving many BPM nodes and a separate (single or replicated) ActiveMatrix Administrator server.

The upgrade procedure differs according to the system topology. See:

Note: If you are upgrading a distributed ActiveMatrix BPM system, configuration of the ActiveMatrix Administrator internal HTTP port (default 19767) for load balancing is no longer necessary.

To perform the upgrade successfully:

  • You must upgrade the ActiveMatrix Administrator server first, then the runtime hosts and nodes, then finally the BPM application.
  • When you install ActiveMatrix BPM software on a machine, you must use the correct installation profile.

You should perform each upgrade action that is required by the particular configuration of your ActiveMatrix enterprise. For example:

  • If ActiveMatrix Administrator is not replicated there is no second primary machine to upgrade.
  • If you are upgrading two ActiveMatrix BPM systems in the same ActiveMatrix enterprise, you would upgrade the first system as shown in the referenced procedures above. You would not then need to upgrade the ActiveMatrix Administrator server when upgrading the second system.

Upgrade Impact

No configuration is required prior to an upgrade and upgrade does not affect any of the configuration of your existing installation. For example, if an upgrade is performed:

  • All existing process instances deployed on your existing installation will still be available.
  • Process instances and work items with a status of In Progress continue to be processed.
  • Configured LDAP containers, users and organization memberships will still be available.
Note: Depending on the size of your system, upgrade can take some time. You should allow sufficient time for the upgrade to be performed.

Note that:

  • While the ActiveMatrix Administrator server is being upgraded, deployed applications will continue to run without service interruption. However, the Administrator server itself will be unavailable, which means you cannot perform functions such as deploying new applications and managing existing applications, and managing infrastructure.
  • While a TIBCO Host instance and its nodes are being upgraded, the applications deployed on the nodes will be stopped. As a result, clients of those applications will experience service interruption.

BPM Node Types and Upgrade

If you are upgrading from a pre-4.0 version ActiveMatrix BPM system that includes BPM nodes of node type Web Components, Process Manager or Work Manager, these node types will automatically be converted as part of the upgrade process to version 4.0 node types. (Web Components nodes are converted to Client node type. Process Manager and Work Manager nodes are converted to Server node type.)

Note: The upgrade process could potentially take a significant amount of time because of the work involved in this conversion.