Updating LSF Core Technology 9.0.0.6 to 9.0.1.x

Moving from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows requires OS re-install (i.e not an in-place OS upgrade). Benefits are better performance and memory utilization.

We made the jump from 9.0 to 9.01 64 Bit on the Unix side. We created a new LPAR on our server. Overall this was one of our better upgrades from the tech side.

We decided to make the jump to 64 bit for a couple reasons:
Impact on users to upgrade later. Chances of us getting a window to do two upgrades (9.01 apps and then to 64 bit) was unlikely.
We built out a new LPAR on our server so OS would have to be installed from scratch anyway, made it easy to just install 64 bit.
Prep for Smart Office. We have not purchased yet but in order to take advantage of all the functionality we needed to position ourselves technically.

Thanks for the feedback. My concern is we're in a position right now where we just finished a major upgrade to LSF 9 last year, and I'm not sure how our end-users would take to another upgrade within 1 year. Is it a huge undertaking or is it smaller in scale than when you make the initial jump to LSF 9?

I did the upgrade from 9.0.0.3 to 9.0.1.4 (apps and environment). I Setup a mirror environment on our backup server with both environments sharing the same Oracle database. We are on AIX UNIX. I then upgraded the applications to 64 bit on production while the users were running off of the mirror, which was still on the 32 bit applications. This allowed me to have as much downtime as I needed to perform the upgrades. We had about 1 minute of downtime for the user as they logged out of Portal and back in to Portal. Portal was redirected to the mirror site. We scheduled the weekend for the final move, but I could've let the users back on after 5 hours. I just took to the following day to do same data cleanup and reorgs.

To get ready for the upgrade I had to do multiple upgrades to AIX UNIX and the firmware. Also, three Upgrades to Oracle.

AIX 5.3 RL4 -> 5.3 Terminal RL4 -> 5.3 RL6 - 5.3 RL9
Firmware SF240_220 -> SF240 _338 -> SF240_358
Oracle 10.2.0.1 -> 10.2.0.4 -> 11.1.0.6 -> 11.1.0.7

The iceberg is usually which version of WebSphere you are running. If you are running 6.1, you will probably have a smooth ride. If you are on 6.0, then you will need to upgrade to 6.1 (or preferably 7.x). Some platforms (HP-UX for instance) have different OS requirements for each WebSphere release, and might require full re-install from the OS on up... Since you are on Windows, this is probably not as much of an issue, but to take advantage of x64, you would need to install to new hardware anyway...