Planning for upgrading- Sterling Integrator

You can upgrade Sterling B2B Integrator on your existing systems or new systems. Upgrading involves certain prerequisites that must be completed before you can upgrade.

You must prepare for an upgrade in the same way that you prepare for an installation. It is also recommended that you thoroughly test this process in a test or development environment before you implement it in a production environment.

The system requirements differ based on the mode of installation. The requirements for a docker installation are different from the requirements for an installation by using the IBM Installation Manager.

Important: The system requirements for a Docker installation are different from those required for an IIM installation.

Upgrade considerations

Before you start upgrading, go through the considerations for upgrading from your particular release. If you are planning on using Docker for upgrading, you must also go through the limitations and determine if upgrading by using Docker is compatible with your current setup.

Adding or removing features when upgrading

Features that are not part of your current Sterling B2B Integrator installation are disabled and you cannot select them when upgrading or applying a fix pack. Similarly, you cannot deselect features that are already part of your setup when you upgrade.

To include features or exclude features from your Sterling B2B Integrator setup, you must first upgrade to the current version, and then enable or disable them separately. For more information, see License Modifications.

If the fix pack or upgrade includes updates to features that are part of your current Sterling B2B Integrator installation, the features are upgraded regardless of whether you select them or not.

CAUTION:
Before upgrading to the latest product version, contact your sales representative to verify that it includes all of your current functionality. Depending on the timing, even though it’s in a higher version that the one you have installed, a particular mod release or fix pack might not include all the functionality in your current version or fix pack.

Upgrade Considerations

You can upgrade to the latest version of Sterling B2B Integrator from an older version (5.2.0 and later versions). You can upgrade either using Docker or IBM Installation Manager.

Before you start upgrading, go through the considerations for upgrading from your particular release. If you are planning on using Docker for upgrading, you must also go through the limitations and determine if upgrading by using Docker is compatible with your current setup.

Important: Depending on which version you are upgrading from, you need to review one or more topics listed. The upgrade impacts listed for each subsequent version are specific to that version. There is not cumulative list.

Upgrading from Sterling B2B Integrator version 5.2.6.x to the latest version has certain impacts.

ActiveMQ is no longer bundled with Sterling B2B Integrator

A messaging queue is required for Sterling B2B Integrator if you are using adapter containers.

ActiveMQ is no longer bundled and installed with Sterling B2B Integrator. You must use install and use IBM MQ as the messaging queue.

If your current setup has adapter containers, you must install IBM MQ and set the required properties for IBM MQ before you upgrade.

Due to the removal of Active MQ, the following features are no longer available in Sterling B2B Integrator:
  • Scheduled Business processes:
    • RetentionProcessor
    • MESAVisToolkit_RetentionProcessor
  • Event listener FIFO adapter configured with internal Active MQ
  • Services configured with internal Active MQ:
    • Sterling Community Manager Agreement Conversion Status Service
    • Sterling Community Manager Integration Adapter
Note:
  • The SCMEventListener is an event listener for Sterling Community Manager. If you use this adapter to listen to the events, you must configure external ActiveMQ before enabling this listener service. By default, this service is disabled as out-of-the-box Active MQ is removed.
    The system displays exceptions in the log files when you try to enable the adapter without configuring the external ActiveMQ.

  • As part of Sterling B2B Integrator startup, the run.sh the script is used to trigger startListeners.sh, which starts the Event Service for internal Active MQ. Since the bi the listener is no longer required, you do not see the bi.pid file.
    After you restart Sterling B2B Integrator, you see only noapp.pid and ops.pid. For more information on how to install external MQ, see Installing IBM MQ.

If you are using the bundled ActiveMQ for any messaging purpose, you must migrate to IBM MQ or configure external ActiveMQ.

External ActiveMQ is still supported for the JMS adapter. If you are already using External ActiveMQ for the JMS adapter, you can continue to use it.

JDK 8 is the only supported JDK version
There are several impacts due to this change:
  • If you are not already using JDK 8, you must upgrade your JDK before you upgrade Sterling B2B Integrator to the latest version. You can use the upgrade JDK script to upgrade your version of JDK.
  • Only ciphers that are supported by JDK 8 can be used in Sterling B2B Integrator. You can update your cipher suites in security.properties.
  • Previously defined ciphers in customer_overrides.properties are not changed upon upgrade to the latest version.
  • DefaultCipherSuite contains a list of JDK 8 ciphers that can be used when others are not available.
Change in the installation directory structure for an IIM installation

If you install Sterling B2B Integrator using IIM, the installation directory structure has changed from the directory structure in v5.2.6.x.

The installation files of the latest version are located in: <install_dir>/

The installation files for 5.2.6.x were located in: <install_dir>/install/

You must modify the installation file path in all your customizations for them to continue to work with Sterling B2B Integrator.

Important: This is applicable only if you install Sterling B2B Integrator using IIM.
B2BAPI port changes

After you upgrade to the latest version, the B2BAPI port number may change.

The API URLs will not work. You must get the correct port number and replace it in the API URLs.

To get the changed port number, see the LIBERTY_HTTPS_PORT and LIBERTY_PORT properties in sandbox.cfg.

MESA Developer Studio not supported

From v6.0 onwards, MESA Developer Studio is no longer bundled with Sterling B2B Integrator. After upgrading to the latest version, customizations from previous versions will not be available in Sterling B2B Integrator.

To customize the appearance of the Sterling B2B Integrator user interface, follow the instructions provided here: Customizing the Sterling B2B Integrator user interface.

To develop a new workflow service, see Creating a Service.

MySQL database is not supported

In previous versions of Sterling B2B Integrator, the MySQL database was supported for non-clustered installations of Sterling B2B Integrator. From v6.0 onwards Sterling B2B Integrator does not support the MySQL database.

DB2 requires additional tablespace

If you are upgrading from a version before v5.2.6.2, you must ensure that all tablespaces used by Sterling B2B Integrator tables have a minimum page size of 8K. Otherwise, the installation fails.

Upgrading from Sterling B2B Integrator version 5.2.5.x has certain impacts.

In addition to the following information, you must also see the information in Considerations for upgrading from version 5.2.6.x.

Support for SSLV3 has been removed - TLS 1.2 is the new default
Due to security concerns, Sterling B2B Integrator no longer supports the use of SSLV3. You should be aware of the following changes as you upgrade your system to this version:
  • Several properties have been updated to use TLS 1.2 as the default. If your mail server cannot use TLS 1.2, you can change your SMTP and B2B Mail Client adapters to use TLS 1.0 or 1.1 instead.
  • If any of your 3rd party programs do not support the use of TLS 1.2, you can change Sterling B2B Integrator to use TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1.
  • In all cases, requests to use "SSLV3" in Sterling B2B Integrator will use instead TLS 1.0, TLS1.1, or TLS1.2.
  • TLS 1.2 is used as the default protocol in secure communications. This change applies to any system that is upgraded to V5.2.6.
  • If your GPM, WebSphere MQ, or OFTP adapters are configured to use older, non-supported cipher suites (non-TLS 1.2), they will continue to work. However, if you edit them, only TLS 1.2 will be available to select.

Upgrading from Sterling B2B Integrator version 5.2.0.x to the latest version has certain impacts.

In addition to the following information, you must also see the information in Considerations for upgrading from version 5.2.5.x and Considerations for upgrading from version 5.2.6.x.

JDK 7 does not support the TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_MD5 cipher
If you are using JDK 7 with Sterling B2B Integrator V5.2.5, and you want to use a cipher to secure the Sterling B2B Integrator dashboard, you must set one of the following values in the dashboardCipherSuite parameter in the security.properties_platform_asi_ext.in property file or in customer_overrides:
  • JDK (includes all strong ciphers except the one not supported by JDK 7)
  • Weak

Do not use Strong or All with JDK 7 or Sterling B2B Integrator will not start.

Reconciliation of HIPAA Level 5 code lists

When you upgrade to Sterling B2B Integrator, the customized HIPAA Level 5 code lists from the previous version are preserved in the system where they were entered. However, they are not the default code lists after the upgrade. After the upgrade, you must manually make any customized code lists the default code lists.

For example, if you have customized the ICD9 or HCPCSCPT code list in the previous version of Sterling B2B Integrator, after upgrading to the latest version, you must replace the default ICD9 or HCPCSCPT code list with the customized ICD9 or HCPCSCPT code list.

Roadmap for upgrading Sterling B2B Integrator by using IIM

The upgrade process for Sterling B2B Integrator consists of several phases. Before you start upgrading, you must go through the considerations for upgrading from your version of Sterling B2B Integrator and plan the roadmap for the upgrade.

The following diagram shows the Planning steps.

Planning for upgradePrerequisitesPreparing for the upgradeUpgrading Sterling B2B Integrator by using IIMPost-upgrade ConfigurationsUpgrade ConsiderationsServer system requirementsClient system browser settings

The upgrade process for Sterling B2B Integrator consists of the following five steps.

  1. Planning
  2. Prerequisites
  3. Preparing systems
  4. Upgrade
  5. Post-upgrade configurations

The Planning step further has the following steps:

  1. Understanding the upgrade considerations.
  2. Checking the server system requirements.
  3. Checking the client system requirements.

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