Skip to content

Critical Manufacturing Upgrade Procedure#

The Critical Manufacturing Upgrade procedure is heavily dependent on the level of customization of the system and must always be validated and rehearsed in a staging system. When upgrading between major versions, it's expected that some downtime is required. When upgrading between minor versions of the system it might be possible to upgrade without downtime depending on the customer requirements. While the database is being upgraded incoming requests might block waiting for the upgrade to complete and this might have impact on the system normal operation. When applying an update, it's not expected any downtime.

Information on the upgrade procedure for the Critical Manufacturing MES is available on the Developer Portal ⧉.

Upgrade an MES Customer Environment#

Upgrading a Customer Environment is a simple process in the DevOps Center ⧉. Having an existing Customer Environment, the process relies on creating a new version and changing what is necessary before deploying. What changes in an upgrade is completely your choice.

By creating a new version, changing configurations and finishing by deploying, a new stack will be created in the cluster with the newly applied changes.

To exemplify, you should continue from the Create Environment(create_mes_customer_environment.md) section of the Guide and upgrade that environment to a Critical Manufacturing MES v8.3.3. This will create a new environment and the actual system will also upgrade the database to v8.3.3 during the installation.

  1. Start by selecting New Version in the main page of the Customer Environment.

    New Version button on the Customer Environment main page

  2. In the wizard, nothing has to be done. However, it is possible to change the Description and opt-in to clear the parameters. Be careful as this last operation clears all configurations for the new version. Select Create and the new version is created in the system.

  3. The next step is to change Critical Manufacturing MES from v8.3.2 to v8.3.3. In the installation page, change the Deployment Package to MES 8.3.3.

    Changing the Deployment Package to MES 8.3.3 in the installation page

  4. The version is now changed from v8.3.2 to v8.3.3. This is enough for the upgrade to happen after triggering the deployment process. However, if using a customization package and if the upgrade also comprehends a change to that package, it is necessary to change it. In that case, update the value of Package to Install in the General Data step.

    Updating the Package to Install field in the General Data step

    Warning

    If consuming local packages for Critical Manufacturing MES Environment Manager, such as a customization package, do not forget to add those to the location that the Boot Packages Folder points to.

  5. In case the upgrade also comprehends changing any configuration or enabling a new feature, you can now do that. What you have to do is select Next and wait until the execution jumps to the Deployment step, and then wait until the deployment and installation finishes. You are advised to turn on Critical Manufacturing MES Maintenance Mode before upgrading to ensure that if the new version has integration entries to be processed, these are not handled by the old Critical Manufacturing MES that is still running as this could result in errors or data inconsistency.

    To turn on the Maintenance Mode, go to Critical Manufacturing MES, select Administration followed by System Monitoring. On that page, there is a button named Set Maintenance Mode. Select it.

    Set Maintenance Mode button in the System Monitoring page

    Selecting Active will turn on the Maintenance Mode. A notification is then displayed in the bottom-left corner:

    Notification confirming that Maintenance Mode is active

  6. After starting the Deployment, the process is the same; it is automatic and feedback is presented.

    Deployment progress and status for the new MES version

    After a short time, the Deployment should finish with success (upgrades take longer than clean installs). This indicates that the new stack was successfully deployed and Critical Manufacturing MES was upgraded.

  7. Lastly, you have to deactivate the Maintenance Mode. Once again, go to Critical Manufacturing MES, select Administration followed by System Monitoring. Select Set Maintenance Mode and then select Deactivate.

    Deactivate option for Maintenance Mode in System Monitoring

    After deactivation, you are presented with a notification regarding the new version that is available:

    Notification indicating that a new MES version is available after upgrade

    Selecting the new version will refresh Critical Manufacturing MES, which will load any new changes that came from the upgrade.