Upgrading ExCM 2013 R1 to R2
Article Contents:
ExCM 2013 R2 adds many new features to the software and a large number of them are related to making it as easy as possible to deploy and configure ExCM into a multi-server SharePoint farm of any size.
To make this possible, R2 now includes a Central Administration component (located on the General Application Settings page) that includes many options for configuring various aspects of ExCM:
Because of this major addition of new functionality, we strongly recommend that you thoroughly test your upgrade from R1 to R2 in a devtest environment before upgrading in production.
There are a number of changes to how you install and deploy ExCM 2013 R2, as compared to how you did it with R1:
Deployment Change #1:
- With R1, you probably installed ExCM and ran the configuration wizard only on your web front-end servers. One of those servers may have had Central Administration running on it, or not.
- With R2, you are REQUIRED to run the installer on your Central Administration server, because it needs to pick up all of the new components shown in the screenshot above.
Deployment Change #2:
- With R1, if your Central Administration server wasn't a web front-end server, you generally did not have to install anything ExCM-related on it. Also, you may not have the "Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application" service started on your Central Administration server.
- With R2, on your Central Administration server you MUST start the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application service, if it is not already, in order for all of the components to get installed and run properly. This is a requirement that SharePoint imposes if you want to deploy components of a Farm Solution (which ExCM is) to a given server in a farm. SharePoint will only deploy Farm Solution components to servers that have the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application service started on it. Therefore, since R2 now has ExCM components for Central Administration, this service will need to be started on your Central Administration server, if it is not already.
This is the service that must be started on your Central Administration server:
Note: You can learn more about this requirement
here.
Important if you are starting this service for the first time on your CA server: if your Central Administration server does not currently run on a web front-end server and you start the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application service on it for the first time, SharePoint will automatically create IIS sites for all of your existing web applications on the CA server. This process can take some time depending on your farm's performance and how many web applications you have.
***Also***, after all of your web applications have been added to your CA server, you will need to manually copy over your existing extranet web.config file from one of your WFEs to your CA server. This is necessary because in ExCM 2013 R1 you made manual edits to your extranet web.config file(s) to enable forms-based authentication and the ASP.NET Membership Provider. When SharePoint adds the web application to your CA server, it will use an "original" version of the web application's web.config file that it stores in the database, rather than your manually edited file. ExCM 2013 R2 requires that the same version of the web.config file be present on all servers in your farm, so that is why you will need to manually copy the file from a WFE to your CA server, before proceeding with ExCM 2013 R2.
Deployment Change #3:
- With R1, you probably ran the installer and the configuration wizard on every web front-end server in your farm.
- With R2, you will first run the installer and the configuration wizard on your Central Administration server, and then you will run only the installer, not the configuration wizard, on all other servers in your farm.
This diagram is an overview of the major steps that you will take to upgrade your farm (whether a single server or multiple servers) from ExCM 2013 R1 to R2:
(click image to view full size - click here to download the full image)
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Tip: Before beginning the upgrade, be sure you know the build number of the ExCM 2013 R1 version that you are upgrading from. Take a sceenshot of the ExCM About page and save it somewhere. This information will be needed if you run into problems and require technical support from PremierPoint Solutions.
Take a screenshot of this page (found on the root site of your extranet web application at Site Settings > Extranet Management > About) before starting the upgrade, and save it for later reference:
Phase 1 (to be performed on Central Administration server only):
- Make sure to run the downloaded installer file (ExCM2013.exe) as a local administrator with elevated permissions.
- Click on Install. The first part of the installation only unpacks and copies files to the Program Files directory on the server. No files are copied to any SharePoint folders or uploaded to SQL Server at this point.
- The existing R1 deployment and licensing files are upgraded to R2 versions at C:Program FilesSharePoint Solutions. Inside of that folder are an ExCM folder and a License Manager folder. Those folders contain various installation files - the most significant being the SPSolutionsExtranetCollaborationManager.2013.wsp file, which is the cabinet file that represents a custom farm solution for SharePoint.
- Click on Configure and then click on Run the ExCM Configuration Wizard. This wizard 1) checks to make sure that a list of prerequisites for your server are met, 2) selects the "Upgrade" option, and 3) begins by uploading the .wsp to SharePoint's solution store in SQL Server (the equivalent of the "Add-SPSolution" powershell command).
- Next the Configure wizard does the equivalent of the "Install-SPSolution" powershell command. This command unpacks the .wsp file and begins the solution deployment process to the hard drives of all of the servers in your farm. (Note: SharePoint's solution deployment process will only deploy files to SharePoint servers that have the SharePoint Foundation Web Application service started on them. This is why it is critical (as indicated in the Prerequisites topic) to have that service started on your Central Administration server, if it is not already).
- SharePoint's native Farm Solution deployment mechanism 1) reads the manifest.xml file that is included in the .wsp and 2) creates a special timer job to 3) deploy the solution components that are specified in the manifest to every server in the farm. An example of what SharePoint is doing is shown in this diagram:
(click image to see full size)
- Once the Configure wizard finishes, the ExCM 2013 R2 solution deployment to all of the servers in your farm is technically complete and your software has been upgraded, but in most environments a farm-wide SharePoint Timer Service recycle and an additional "solution retractredeploy" cycle is necessary for SharePoint to get all of the new components fully deployed. Therefore, complete these additional steps in your farm:
- On each server in your farm at an elevated command prompt, run the following commands:
net stop SPTimerV4
iisreset
net start SPTimerV4
- In Central Administration, navigate to Site Settings > Manage Site Features and find the Extranet Collaboration Manager Farm Settings feature and check to see if it is activated. If it is already activated, skip to Step 8 below.
- If the Extranet Collaboration Manager Farm Settings feature has not been activated, go ahead and activate it:
- In Central Administration, navigate to System Settings > Manage Farm Solutions and retract the ExCM solution as shown in the screenshots below:
- Now, re-deploy the solution:
- Verify your installation and deployment by examining the following:
- Navigate to General Application Settings and confirm that the Extranet Collaboration Manager group of menu items has been added to the page:
- Navigate to Monitoring > Review Job Definitions and confirm that the Extranet Global Configuration Timer Job is in the list:
- If either or both of the above checks fail, go back to Step 7d and retract and re-deploy the solution.
Phase 2 (to be performed on each remaining server in your farm):
- Copy the downloaded installation file (ExCM2013.exe) to the server. Make sure to run the ExCM2013.exe file as a local administrator.
- Complete the Install option. This will upgrade the License Administrator software on the server::
- The License Administrator software is installed and its DLLs and other files copied to the server at C:Program FilesSharePoint SolutionsLicense Manager. After this, you will be presented with the option to run the "Configure" wizard again. You should cancel out of this screen, since the Configure wizard has already been run once in the farm and to do it again would be redundant:
Now that you have successfully upgraded your farm to ExCM 2013 R2, the natural next question may be "What do I do next?".
Since you already had a working extranet based on ExCM 2013 R1, there is no need to run the new Setup Wizard that is available with R2:
Instead, we recommend that you review the list of new features in ExCM 2013 R2 to determine which of the new features might be helpful for you to take advantage of in your existing extranet.
You can find the list of new features here:
What's new in ExCM 2013 R2
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