A quick tour of enterprise geodatabase upgrades

The goal of upgrading an enterprise geodatabase is to upgrade the geodatabase system tables and install updated stored procedures, types, and functions.

Installing a new version of the ArcGIS client or applying a service pack, patch, or hot fix to an existing installation, then upgrading the geodatabase, allows you to take advantage of new functionality and bug fixes.

In ArcGIS 10 and later releases, geodatabase upgrades must be performed using the Upgrade Geodatabase tool or a Python script. Do not use the sdesetup command to upgrade the geodatabase. If you do, you will receive a message indicating the geodatabase already exists, and the upgrade will not run.

Esri recommends that you test upgrades of the geodatabase, your database management system (DBMS), or both, on a separate development or test server. After you have tested the upgraded geodatabase on the development or test server and everything is working as you expected, you can upgrade your production geodatabase. Esri also recommends that you plan for and schedule your upgrades, making sure all staff involved with or impacted by the upgrade are notified of the scheduled upgrade.

You can upgrade ArcSDE 9.3, 9.3.1, or 10 geodatabases to geodatabase release 10.1. If your geodatabase is at a lower release, you must first upgrade to a supported release, then upgrade to 10.1.

Read the following topics before upgrading:

Preparing to upgrade a geodatabase in Informix

Upgrading an ArcSDE 9.3 or later release geodatabase in Informix

NoteNote:

Upgrades from beta to final release are not supported.

The following is an outline of the common steps you perform when you are ready to upgrade an enterprise geodatabase:

  1. Create a backup of the database.
  2. Remove any custom functionality you may have added to the geodatabase system tables outside ArcGIS such as triggers, participation in SQL Server replication, or additional indexes. The upgrade procedure cannot take into account customizations you make to the system tables. If such customizations prevent the alteration of a system table's schema, the upgrade will fail.
  3. If you are using an ArcSDE service, do the following:
    • Stop (do not pause) the service and delete it.
    • If you are upgrading to a new release of ArcGIS, uninstall the old version of ArcSDE. If you are applying a service pack, patch, or hot fix, do not uninstall ArcSDE.
    • Install the new release ArcSDE application server, or apply the service pack, patch, or hot fix for ArcSDE.
      NoteNote:

      Download the ArcSDE application server installation for your DBMS from the Esri Customer Care portal.

  4. Install the new release of ArcGIS for Desktop (Standard or Advanced), ArcGIS Engine Runtime with the Geodatabase Update extension, or ArcGIS for Server (Standard or Advanced).
  5. The database administrator must grant the geodatabase administrator user extra privilegess to upgrade. These permissions are listed in each of the "User privileges" topics.
  6. Connect directly to the geodatabase. In most cases, you will connect as the geodatabase administrator.
  7. Open the Geodatabase Properties dialog box, click the General tab, then click Upgrade Geodatabase. This opens the Upgrade Geodatabase geoprocessing tool dialog box.
  8. Run the Upgrade Geodatabase tool.
  9. On Windows, re-create the ArcSDE service (if used) using the sdeservice and sdemon commands. On UNIX or Linux, start an ArcSDE service (if used) using the sdemon command.
    NoteNote:

    The sdeservice and sdemon ArcSDE administration commands are installed with the ArcSDE application server.

Related Topics

8/25/2014