Strategy ONE

Best Practices for Configuring an Upgrade Test Environment

Strategy recommends that you follow these best practices for configuring your upgrade test environment:

  • Do not modify any existing configuration objects. If you need additional configuration objects for testing, you can either create additional objects, or duplicate an existing object and modify it. This applies to database instances, connections and logins, security filters, users and user groups, and security roles.
  • If your production environment is clustered, then your test environment should also be clustered.
  • If your test and production data warehouses have different database table prefixes, make sure you are using the correct prefixes in the test environment's Warehouse Catalog.
  • Create an integrity test comparing reports from the upgraded test environment with the same reports in the production environment, so that you can easily see where any differences are.
  • If possible, plan to execute data integrity and performance load tests against the production warehouse. This ensures that the test scenarios are as representative of the production environment as possible.
  • If you are creating reports and documents specifically for an upgrade integrity test, create those reports and documents before you duplicate the production metadata.

  • If you are using connection mapping for users to access the data warehouse, check to be sure that all users can log in to the test data warehouse, since user passwords may differ between the test warehouse and the production warehouse.

    One way to manage this is to create a new generic database login, and then use the following sample Command Manager script to change users' connection mappings to use this new login:

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    ALTER CONNECTION MAP FOR USER "username" DBINSTANCE "production_warehouse_instance" DBLOGIN "test_login" ON PROJECT "project";
  • If you are planning to upgrade Enterprise Manager, run a data load before you upgrade Intelligence Server. If you do not run a data load before upgrading Enterprise Manager and the projects on the Intelligence Servers, you may lose access to some statistics data. All Enterprise Manager upgrades require that you also upgrade your statistic tables, Enterprise Manager repository, and your Enterprise Manager metadata.
  • If you are using Narrowcast Server, make sure that the database copy of the Narrowcast repositories is not used when setting up the Narrowcast Server test environment. Instead, make a copy of the repositories with the Copy Repository utility included with Narrowcast Administrator and use this copy. This ensures that the test environment does not accidentally refer to a production server. For detailed instructions on creating a copy of the Narrowcast repositories, see the Narrowcast Server Upgrade Guide.