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Release Notes
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Most upgrades from one version to the next are straightforward and uneventful. This is because Informatica strives to introduce new features without affecting existing functionality.
However, users are strongly encouraged to read and understand the release notes for each intermediate version between their existing system and their intended upgrade target.
Informatica makes every effort to support interoperability between different versions of UM. We understand the difficulty for users to upgrade every component and application at the same time. We also understand the infeasibility for users to upgrade to every new UM version that is released.
For users who upgrade gradually, a few components at a time, Informatica strongly recommends users upgrade UM Daemons first, followed by applications. (This ordering of upgrades does not apply to users who upgrade all components in a single step.)
The UM daemons are:
When upgrading to a new version, you should not have a newer application using an older UM daemon. (There is no particular recommended order among the daemon types.)
When upgrading Persistent Stores from a pre-6.13 version to UM 6.13 and beyond, Informatica recommends upgrading any DROs before the Persistent Stores. See bug 10833.
Users of the UMDS daemon (umdsd) should contact Informatica Support for advice on upgrading.
Informatica makes an effort to ensure compatibility of its ABI (Application Binary Interface). This allows applications to be upgraded by simply replacing the UM library, without having to recompile the applications. Unless otherwise noted in a UM version's special upgrade procedures, ABI compatibility is maintained across all minor versions of a given major version.
However, there are times that ABI compatibility must be broken to support new functionality. This happened with the introduction of UM version 6.5; certain applications that were built with UM version 6.0 and 6.1 need to be recompiled when upgrading to 6.5 and beyond. See UM 6.5 Context Stats Expansion.
Informatica has extensive automated regression test frameworks that generally do a good job of ensuring the quality of each new software version. However, no testing methodology can test all combinations of configurations across all possible use cases. So regressions are always possible.
The user has a responsibility to test his application system after upgrading to a new version of UM. The degree of testing depends on the amount of change that that UM has undergone between the old and new versions. For example, there are generally very few changes when upgrading from a version to an Emergency Bug Fix (EBF) of that version. So minimal re-testing is needed. The release notes can provide an idea of how much testing should be done after an upgrade. Contact Informatica Support for assistance in the analysis.
In addition to the general upgrade instructions above, there are version-specific special upgrade instructions associated with many versions. You may need to apply multiple of these special instructions depending on how many UM versions you are skipping as you upgrade. Here are the special instructions for UM versions 6.x:
Note that upgrading from versions prior to 6.0 requires special care. UM version 6.7 is the first 6.x version that is compatible with pre-6.0 versions, so the Special Upgrade Instructions for 6.7 must be followed.