Microsoft IT Upgrade Learnings

Here's some upgrade learnings from my swiss friend Andre over in MS IT. Great nuggets.

Like to share a few learning’s for gradual Asia PORTAL upgrades.

Beginning upgrade / Pairing WebApps: Make sure that the “Windows SharePoint Services Web Application” Service is started on all FE’s (http://ServerName:8888/_admin/Server.aspx). This is required so that the V3 Time Service can creating all pair WebApps on all required FE’s. You can start this service farm wide using the following command “stsadm -o provisionservice -action start -servicetype SPWebService” (you will find that this service is running on all farms already; just something to check)
Verify on SQL that the PORTAL_PAIR database does not exist (might be left over from a previous failed upgrade). Make also sure that the MDF/LDF for previously failed upgrades are gone (otherwise the upgrade will create a PAIR using a GUID rather then PORTAL_PAIR)
On the Web FE’s where the WebApps are hosted (after pairing, you have 2 WebApps. 1 for V2 and 1 for V3), make sure that PORTAL_PAIR (V2) has the correct HostHeader applied (something like PORTALOLD). This needs to be checked on all FE’s. We found that the HostHeaders are not propagated properly across the farm in B2. Same is true for the PORTAL (V3) WebApp. Make sure that this WebApp has the correct HostHeader which will be the PORTAL name.
Delete the FTS indexes on the V2 SITE database and disable FTS using proc_disablefulltextsearch
Rename the old upgrade log at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\LOGS. A new upgrade log will be created upon upgrade start
If there is a chance that you need to revert to V2, get a WINS entry created for the PORTALOLD.
This is important: Make sure that there is enough disk-space available on SQL

Requirements are for the default data drive where the Pair and WSSTEMP DB’s are created: 2 Times the size of the Portal (1 x PAIR + 1 x WSSTEMP)
Requirements are for the log drive where the logs are located: 2 Times the size of the Portal (1 x PAIR_Log + 1 x WSSTEMP_Log). The logs might grow as large as the actual database
Example. If the Portal is 5GB, then the data drive available space needs to be at least 10GB. The available log drive space needs to be 10GB also.

Make sure that both portal and portal_pair for db and log have autogrow enabled
Make sure that the pair database is grown manually to the SIZE of the V2 Site database + 500MB. Can be optionally done for the logs also. Log size should be V2 SITE db size +500MB
Once the portal has been successfully upgraded, shrink the logs by using DBCC Shrinkfile to reclaim disk space
Verify, by adding entries to the local hosts file, that all FE’s in the farm render the upgraded portal successfully.