Siebel Database Upgrade Guide > Siebel Database and UI Upgrade Planning >

About New Siebel Upgrade Features and Requirements

Upgrades from: All Supported Siebel releases.

Environments: Development, production test, production.

Databases: All databases.

The following new upgrade features are introduced for Siebel CRM 8.0:

• Database Server Configuration Utilities enhancements. The Database Server Configuration Utilities run in an InstallShield type wrapper under both Windows and UNIX. In addition, the utilities detect the local installation environment and automatically complete many of the fields requested by the configuration pages.
• Additive Schema Changes. This Database Server Configuration Utilities mode allows you to perform part of the production database upgrade without taking the production database offline. This reduces the production database downtime required for the upgrade. See About Siebel Additive Schema Changes Mode.
• Multilingual upgrade. Formerly, the upgrade process upgraded only the base language. All other deployed languages had to be upgraded manually. For Siebel CRM 8.0, the upgrade process upgrades the base language and all deployed languages. See Upgrade Planning for Multilingual Siebel Deployments.
• ICL upgrade enhancements. A new object property, ICL Upgrade Path, specifies what release the Upgrade Behavior property applies to. This allows objects to be nonpreservable for upgrades from releases prior to the specified release. For upgrades after the specified release, the objects are preservable. About the Siebel Incorporate Custom Layout (ICL) Upgrade Option.
• Repository merge for customized workflows. The repository merge process will merge customizations to seeded workflows in the Prior Customer Repository into the related workflows in the New Customer Repository. The merge logic is the same as for other repository objects. Upgrade Planning for Siebel Workflow Designer.
• Case insensitive and accent insensitive queries wizard. A new wizard in Siebel Tools allows you to configure columns in the repository to support case insensitive and accent insensitive queries. You can either select columns manually or use an input file to run the wizard in batch mode. You run the wizard after the repository merge. About the Siebel Case Insensitivity Wizard.
• Logparse utility reporting enhancements. For upgrades on IBM DB2 and Oracle, benign errors are no longer included in Logparse summary reports. Logparse automatically checks all errors against a benign errors file. If an error is benign, Logparse does not include it in the summary report. About the Siebel Database Upgrade Log Files.

The following new upgrade features are introduced for Siebel 7.8:

• Platform support for multiple versions of components. You can install multiple versions of the Siebel Server and Siebel Web Server Extension on the same machine. You cannot install multiple versions of the Siebel Gateway Name Server.

  For example, you are upgrading from Siebel 7.7 to the current release. You have thoroughly tested the Siebel Server in the current release and are ready to install it in your production environment. You can install the new Siebel Server on production machines where Siebel 7.7 of the Siebel Server is installed. You do not have to take the machines out of service and deinstall the 7.7 Siebel Server before installing the new Siebel Server.

  This reduces the downtime required to transition from an installed version of an Enterprise component to a new version.

  You cannot run two different versions of the same component on one machine. For example, in the scenario above, you cannot run both the 7.7 version of the Siebel Server and the current release version at the same time.

  For information on how to install Siebel Enterprise components, including the Siebel Gateway Name Server, Siebel Server, and Siebel Web Server Extension, see Siebel Installation Guide for the operating system you are using.

• Postmerge utilities can be run multiple times. After the repository merge completes, the postmerge utilities no longer start automatically. You must start them manually, and you can run them multiple times.

  If the postmerge utilities do not complete successfully, you do not always have to rerun the repository merge. Depending on the problem, you only have to rerun the postmerge utilities.