Overview

Background

Archibus is an application used by the Estates and Buildings Estates Department to control and manage various aspects of the University Estate. It is made up of a number of different modules, eg, Reactive Maintenance On Demand via a Helpdesk facility, Compliance Maintenance, Space Planning and Property and Lease. The Archibus technology is 3-fold, all have user facing services:

• Archibus client
• EBIS Online
• Web Central
• Web Central CAD

There is a requirement to upgrade the Oracle database from Oracle 11g to Oracle 12.2. The driver for this is the end of live of the current 11g infrastructure in December 2019. Oracle 11g remains in support however until the end of 2020.

Scope

The scope of this project includes the following:

• The project will migrate the Oracle 11g databases to the Oracle 12c Database Architecture for DEV, TEST and LIVE
• Repoint client applications to the new database
• Refresh the data on DEV and TEST from LIVE
• Carry out integration testing of the upgraded database on TEST
• User acceptance testing on TEST
• Archibus database on Oracle 11g will be decommissioned
• Handover and documentation with Production Management

It has been noted by Mass that the Archibus generated compatibility matrix confirms that version 23.1 Web Central and Windows Client is compatible with Oracle 12C.

The project will migrate to either the current Oracle 12c physical infrastructure or to the new Oracle 12c virtual infrastructure. The route taken will be determined by INF142: Move IS based Oracle databases to VMs and stretched cluster  project, which will move the Wiki over to the new VM infrastructure first. Issues and performance will be reviewed with this migration, and a decision made ahead of the planned start to DEV.

Decision - Migration will be to the physical Oracle 12c infrastructure to minimise the risk.

Out of Scope

• Fixing any pre-existing bugs unless they are proven to be a direct result of the move to Oracle 12.2.
• The project will not alter or migrate any of the applications servers

Assumptions

• This project is not aiming to increase the performance of any of the applications. Investigative work will be carried out if there is a significant decrease in performance that impacts the business being able to carry out their tasks. The assumption is that performance will remain at the current level

Objectives and Deliverables

Benefits

• Oracle support and security patching for the Archibus database will be prolonged and maintained
• Microsoft continued support and security patching of the operating system is assured for the new environment 
• The risk of infrastructure failure or outage is reduced compared to the older physical servers
• Any updated features available in Oracle 12.2 will be available to development teams

The benefit of migrating to the new virtual infrastructure:

• Negates the need to do a further migration in the future to the VM environment

The benefit of migrating to the current physical infrastructure:

• A proven infrastructure which lessens the risk of performance of other issues occurring after migration

Success Criteria

• The upgrade is completed successfully with any post upgrade issues resolved
• The Archibus application retains or improves upon its performance and stability

Project Milestones