54.2 Understanding Upgrade and Migration

When you want to install a newer version of an existing Identity Manager installation, you usually perform an upgrade. However, when the new version of Identity Manager does not provide an upgrade path for your existing data, you must perform a migration. NetIQ defines migration as the process for installing Identity Manager on a new server, then migrating the existing data to this new server.

During the product evaluation period or after activating Advanced Edition, you might want to switch to Standard Edition if you do not want Advanced Edition functionality in your environment. Identity Manager allows you to switch from Advanced Edition to Standard Edition by following a simple procedure.

Upgrade

In general, you can upgrade Identity Manager 4.5 Standard and Advanced Editions.

  • Identity Manager 4.5 Standard Edition: If you currently have Identity Manager 4.5 Standard Edition, you can directly upgrade it to Identity Manager 4.6 Standard Edition. For more information, see Quick Start Guide for Installing and Upgrading NetIQ Identity Manager 4.6 Standard Edition.

    To upgrade Identity Manager 4.5 Standard Edition to Identity Manager 4.6 Advanced Edition, choose one of the following approaches to complete the upgrade:

  • Identity Manager 4.5 Advanced Edition: If you currently have Identity Manager 4.5 Advanced Edition, you can directly upgrade it to Identity Manager 4.6 Advanced Edition. For more information, see Checklist for Upgrading Identity Manager.

Migration

In some cases you cannot perform an upgrade. Instead, you must perform a migration. For example:

  • Unsupported OS: If you previously installed Identity Manager on a server running an operating system that is no longer supported, you must perform a migration instead of an upgrade.

    The following table provides information on the operating systems that support in-place upgrade or migration.

    Operating System

    Action Required

    SLES 11 SP4

    In-Place Upgrade

    SLES 12 SP1

    In-Place Upgrade

    RHEL 6.5

    Migration

    RHEL 7.2

    In-Place Upgrade

    Windows 2012 R2

    In-Place Upgrade

    Windows 2012

    In-Place Upgrade

    Windows 2008

    Migration

  • Identity Manager 4.0.2: If you currently have Identity Manager 4.0.2 with or without RBPM, you cannot perform a direct upgrade. You must complete the following actions:

    • Upgrade to Identity Manager 4.5 Advanced Edition

    • Upgrade to Identity Manager 4.6 Advanced Edition

    • Migrate your roles-based data (identity applications). For more information, see Upgrading the Identity Applications.

If you have multiple servers associated with a driver set, you can perform an upgrade or a migration on one server at a time. If you do not have time to upgrade the servers at the same time, the drivers continue to work with the different versions of Identity Manager until the upgrades for each server can be completed.

The Identity Manager engine is backward-compatible, so the Identity Manager 4.6 engine can run Identity Manager 4.5 drivers without problems. However, you must upgrade the Roles and Resources driver immediately after upgrading the Identity Manager engine.

IMPORTANT:If you enable features for drivers that are supported only on Identity Manager 4.6 or later, the drivers stop working on the servers with mixed versions. The older engines cannot handle the new functionality. This breaks the drivers until all servers are upgraded to Identity Manager 4.6 or later.

Switch From Advanced Edition to Standard Edition

Identity Manager allows you to switch from Advanced Edition to Standard Edition during the product evaluation period or after activating Advanced Edition.

IMPORTANT:If you have already applied Advanced Edition activation, you need not move to Standard Edition as all Standard Edition functionality is available in Advanced Edition. You must switch to Standard Edition only if you do not want any Advanced Edition functionality in your environment and want to scale down your Identity Manager deployment. For more information, see Switching from Advanced Edition to Standard Edition.