Welcome back to our guide on updating your Profound UI install. Catch up on the steps we covered in Part I here.

Updating can be a scary time. How is it going to affect your system? Will something major break? Setting up a test system and updating that is a great way to ensure there are no doubts on update day, and you can build out any changes without affecting your end users. Part one of the series will walk you through steps 1-3 on how to set up a test instance, so we sure to check that out before moving on to updating below.

Don’t forget you can always check the Profound UI version log on our documentation website, so you can read up on all of the latest changes in Profound UI.

Step 4: Update the test instance

Once we have our test instance set up, we will use the installer we downloaded back in step two and update this test instance to the latest version of Profound UI. If you have never used one of the Profound UI installers before, you can find a more detailed guide on our documentation website for the Windows GUI installer and for the 5250 Green Screen installer. To update the test instance, you will run the installer as normal, but with 2 minor exceptions. First, instead of using the default installation library and port number, you will enter the test instance’s library name and port number we chose in step 3. Secondly, unless the patch notes specify a change in the Profound UI Samples Library, or in the HTTP server configuration file in ANY of the releases that are more current then your production instance, you do not need to install these components and you can uncheck them in the installer before running the installation process.

Here are a couple other things of note; when using the Windows GUI installer, you will not be automatically prompted to configure the installation process. Instead you will need to press the ‘Customize…’ button on the screen where you are prompted to enter the IBM i host name to access the configuration options. Additionally, the final step in the Green Screen 5250 installation instructions on our documentation website instruct you to delete the PUISETUP library. Because we plan on using the installer multiple times, you can save some effort by not removing this library every time.

Step 5: Test the update using the test instance

Once the installer has completed updating your test instance to the latest version, you can start testing to see what kind of impact this update process will have on your production instance. There are two main reasons for this testing. The first is to test and practice the update process that we just performed in step 4. And the second is to verify your applications that run within Profound UI will continue to work as expected in the updated release.

The goal of this testing is to create an updated game plan that we can use when you decide to update the production instance. Testing the update process now and ensuring full compatibility for your applications will help prevent surprises on the day when your production instance is updated. Additionally, creating this game plan will help reduce the total downtime your production instance will incur while you update Profound UI.

While performing this testing you will want to make sure that the installation process can complete and update correctly. You can use either of the methods we described in step 1 to confirm the test instance was updated. Additionally, you should perform a full test of your applications to confirm that they are still working correctly after the update process. If you do run into any issues while testing the update, you can contact Profound Logic support for assistance in finding solutions to those issues. You can then add these solutions into your game plan, so that you can quickly correct the same issue in your production instance on update day.

You can also test the update process multiple times! There is no limit to the number of instances you can install onto a single LPAR, and your existing license key will work for every instance you copy over. This will also let you test and refine your game plan for update day.

Step 6: Update your production instance

The time has come. With diligent testing, you should be able to work out all the kinks of the update process and updating your production instance should be nice and simple. We will use the same update process we used in step 4, but this time instead of entering the test instance’s library name and port number, you will be entering your production instance’s library and port number. If you are still unsure about this update, you can always try creating a backup first, that way you have a restore point if you run into any issues with the update process.

Step 7: Clean up

After successfully updating your production instance of Profound UI, you can then begin the process of cleaning up and removing any unused files and instances. If you used the Windows GUI installer to update your Profound UI instance, you can now delete the file from your PC. Additionally, if you used the 5250 green-screen installers, you can now delete the PUISETUP library and the PUISETUP SAVF file from your IBM i. Next you will want to remove the test instances you created while testing the update process. For this, we will again use the ‘Work with Instances’ tool PUIWRKINST to list all of the installed instances on the LPAR. However, this time we will be using option 4 to delete the test instances we created.

When deleting the test instance, we will want to use the default options. The ‘Remove userdata from IFS’ option should only be used when you plan to reinstall this instance later. When we repeat this process again for the next upgrade, we will be creating a fresh copy of the production instance, so this option will not be needed. The final two options are normally only used when completely removing all traces of Profound UI from your system. The ‘Remove sample code library’ option will delete the PUISAMPLES library from your system, and the ‘Remove PUI license keys’ will delete the licensing information from the system.

While the running test instances only use a minor amount of system resources, they are no longer needed in our day-to-day business. Additionally, when the time comes to update your Profound UI version again, it is better to make fresh copies of your production instance, as these fresh copies will also include any other changes you made to your environment between product releases.