Upgrading in a cluster

Before you start the upgrade, consider the following:

  • Connectivity. Schedule a downtime for the upgrade as the users might lose connectivity to the VMS system.

  • SQL Server databases. When installing, make sure to reuse existing SQL Server and the existing SQL Server database that currently stores the system configuration. The system configuration is automatically upgraded.

  • Configuration backup. Make sure to have a backup of the database before you upgrade the components in the cluster.

To limit the downtime, you can install the upgrades by stopping the nodes one by one:

  1. From Failover Configuration Manager, go to your cluster and click Roles. Select a node and right-click on it, then click Stop Cluster Service.
  2. Go to the node that you have stopped the cluster service for and uninstall the XProtect components on that node.
  3. Install the new version on that node and the rest of computers that run a VMS server service or client. Do not start the server services on any computer until you have completed the upgrade.
  4. Go to the next node in the cluster and upgrade the XProtect components on that node.
  5. Continue with the remaining nodes in the cluster.
  6. Once you have upgraded all components in your VMS system, you can start the server services and nodes.