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How to make a complicated migration manageable<br />"You'll lose some, but the survivors come out stronger"<br />

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How to make a complicatedmigrationmanageable<br />Implementing Release 9.x at Avans University of Applied Sciences<br />Your hosts to this presentation are<br />Bert Leene<br />and<br />Arald den Braber<br />

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Who are these guys?<br />Bert Leene<br /><ul><li>Functional application management

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Technical application management

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Development

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Instructor</li></li></ul><li>Who are these guys?<br />Arald den Braber<br /><ul><li>Functional application management

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Technical application management

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Development

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Teacher in web application development & data communication

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Project manager Blackboard migrations

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Involved in other ICT-related projects</li></li></ul><li>3 locations in the Netherlands<br />Breda, Den Bosch, Tilburg<br />24.000 students<br />2.500 employees<br />19 educational units<br />12.000 Blackboard courses<br />Using Blackboard for over 10 years<br />Many custom made Building Blocks<br />Complete Windows environment<br />Special migration team across different departments<br />Amsterdam<br />Bruxelles<br />About Avans<br />

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<ul><li>Planning the migration Bb8  Bb9.1

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Our goals

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Preparation

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Testing

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After care

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List of issues available

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The icing on the cake!</li></ul>We'll talk about<br />

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First half of 2010<br />Getting to know release 9.1<br />Upgrade our building blocks<br />Develop support materials  see the other Avans guys tomorrow<br />First draft of the road map <br />June 2010<br />Test upgrade with ACTUAL DATA<br />Update the road map to an hour-by-hour road map based on the test upgrade<br />Testing<br />July 2010<br />BbWorld<br />First week of august<br />Actual upgrade<br />Launch of the archive<br />The original planning<br />

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Our goals<br />Preserve the existing Content System data<br />Upgrade during the summer break of 2010 <br />Implement Blackboard Learn Release 9.1<br />Give our Building Blocks the NG look and feel<br />Make an online archive environment available<br />Upgrade the serverplatform to new 64bits technology<br />Clean up our environment by deleting old courses<br />

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Why an hour-by-hour roadmap?<br /><ul><li>To have a good indication of the actual downtime

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Availability of staff from different departments

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External service partner

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Determine the correct and most efficient order of steps

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At first we had no idea how long individual steps would take</li></li></ul><li>The bonus we got<br />While thinking about the roadmap we learned that we could reduce the downtime during the actual upgrade<br /><ul><li>A Blackboard upgrade is mostlyaboutconvertingyour dataset

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Needed to be smart since we had to go from 32bits to 64bits

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Whyre-installapplication servers againafter a successfull test upgrade?</li></li></ul><li>How? <br /><ul><li>Park the Bb9.1 servers used in the test upgrade

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These servers were correctly installed and fully tested

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Actual upgrade would basically be limited to converting data

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No need to install Bb on additional cluster servers a second time during downtime </li></li></ul><li>The trick we found in steps <br />The initial Blackboard environment at Avans<br />App3<br />App2<br />App1<br />DB<br />

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Step 1: Clone the production data for the test upgrade<br />Old-DB<br />New-DB<br />Old Storage<br />New Storage<br />

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Step 2: Setup a 32 bits virtual "throwaway" server withBlackboard 8 and upgrade this server to release 9.1.<br />DB<br />Virtual server<br />

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Step 3: Clone the Blackboard 9.1 installationon the virtual server to the 64bit cluster servers.<br />Virtual server<br />App3<br />App2<br />App4<br />App1<br />

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Step 4: Park the 4 application servers afterintensive testing<br />App4<br />App3<br />App2<br />App1<br />

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Step 5: Restore the 32 bits virtual "throwaway" server to it'sinitial Blackboard 8 installation and shutit down.<br />Virtual server<br />

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Step 6: Shut down the production environment<br />Production<br />

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Step 7: Update the newstoragewith a freshcopy of the latestproduction data.<br />Old-DB<br />New-DB<br />Old Storage<br />New Storage<br />

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Step 8: Start the virtual "throw-away" server<br />Virtual server<br />

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Step 9: The actual upgrade to Release 9.1 on the virtual "throw away" host.<br />Virtual server<br />DB<br />

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Step 10: Be reallypatient<br />This presentation will continue in about<br />30hours<br />Just kidding…..<br />……butbepreparedyou have to waitreally long before the Blackboard installer comes up with the "Upgrade completedsuccesfully" message.Onour system ittookalmost 30 hours!We thinkit was because we have a lot of ePortfolio's in the Content System. <br />

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Step 11: This is why the virtual server was called"trowaway server". <br />Virtual server<br />Virtual server<br />Itdidit's job…. <br />....Itconvertedour database to a Bb9.1 database!<br />

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Step 12: Get the parked servers and turn themon.<br />DB Bb9<br />App4<br />App3<br />App2<br />App1<br />Production<br />

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Great! We got the new Blackboard up and running!<br />

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Why is a test upgrade with real data important?<br />Becauseoursfailed!<br />

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<ul><li>Problems in our dataset resulted in "duplicate entries" errors during the installation

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Our dataset goes back over 10 years and has been modified during many upgrades

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Problem was solved by Blackboard and our third party technical service partner

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Problem showed us the importance of testing with REAL DATA!</li></ul>What was the problem?<br />

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<ul><li>3 weeks delay in our planning

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Leaving us less than 2 weeks to test</li></ul>Consequences<br />New challenges!<br /><ul><li>Determine a new planning

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Upgrade during the Christmas break?

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No access to the building, workremote

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Performnew test remote upgrade

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Communicationwhennotworking in the same room

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Informourusersthey had to waitfor Release 9.1</li></li></ul><li><ul><li>Working remote made the detailed planning even more crucial

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Need for a good communication plan</li></ul>Working remote<br /><ul><li>Give people a trigger when to start their job

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Report the finishing of a certain step

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Report problems or expected delays

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SMS/Texting was used to send the triggers

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Mail was usedwhen more details were important

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Oneperson in the lead</li></li></ul><li>Who/What/When<br />That'swhat was in ourdetailed planning<br />

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<ul><li>Blackboard Release 9.1 was installed on new hardware

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The old production environment was planned to become the archive environment

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This archive environment would remain untouched during the upgrade and would remain available in case of a disaster during the upgrade</li></ul>Risk management<br />

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<ul><li>Questions from users  Student assistants

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Repair queries

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Issues & Bugs

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Behind the Blackboard  Find information & report issues</li></ul>After Care<br />

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<ul><li>They all worked in Release 9.1

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They needed work though

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Givethem the Bb9.1 look and feel NG tags(http://www.edugarage.com)

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Use the newconfirmation bars

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Implement AJAX technology to reduce page reloads

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Special attention (another trick) was needed in order not to lose modules and user defined preferences after installing the updated versions Challenge for Blackboard</li></ul>Building Blocks<br />

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<ul><li>Shownews Building Block

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Show announcements in a different way

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Available on: http://www.supportjukebox.nl/bbtlc</li></ul>The icing on the cake<br />

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Configure a Shownews module<br />

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Create an announcement for the module<br />

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Module can also be used on the frontpage<br />Pictureson the frontpageshouldbe set to public in order to work<br />

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Thank You<br />Arald den Braber<br />Avans University of Applied Sciences<br />acbjl.denbraber@avans.nl<br /> @bbbraa<br />Bert Leene<br />Avans University of Applied Sciences<br />awj.leene@avans.nl<br /> @bertwh<br /> Graphics by Rick Dijs<br />