This article describes how to migrate from SquaredUp for Azure v4 to v5. We recommend you read through this article before starting the migration, to familiarise yourself with the migration process and the changes between versions.
If you have an earlier version of SquaredUp for Azure already installed, then the installer will upgrade your installation:
- For upgrades to a minor version, such as v4.6.0 to v4.8.1, or v5.0 to v5.0.1, see How to upgrade SquaredUp for Azure.
- Upgrading from v4 to v5 is covered by this article.
Why migrate to SquaredUp v5?
New features in v5
- Dashboard designer - new dashboard layout designer
- Open Access - now with simplified interactivity
- Web API - easier configuration and more visualisations
For the full list of improvements and bugs addressed see the What's New article and Release Notes.
Planning the upgrade
Summary of the upgrade process
- Before Upgrading - complete the upgrade prerequisites
- Licensing - have your licence key ready
- Download and install SquaredUp v5 side-by-side
- Configure v5
- Decommission v4
You will need to reenter your SquaredUp licence key as part of the upgrade.
1. Before Upgrading
There are a few key tasks you should complete before upgrading:
- While you can upgrade to v5 from any version of v4.x we recommend you have the latest version of SquaredUp v4 installed. Download v4 here.
- Make a note of your licence key, as you will need to enter this as during the v5 installation.
- Ensure the server's default browser is not set to Internet Explorer, which is no longer supported (search Windows > default apps).
- Check the SquaredUp server spec before upgrading.
- Publish any draft dashboards and perspectives you want to keep. Ask other users with authoring rights do the same, because draft dashboards and perspectives are not migrated to the upgraded instance.
- Ensure no changes are made to your v4 instance. You might like to advise other administrators not to not to make any changes to v4, in particular dashboards, perspectives, profiles, Web API providers, dashboard packs, publishing Open Access dashboards, or modifying named users.
- Consider user acceptance testing prior to upgrading, and user training after upgrading.
- Backup SquaredUp v4 - it is good practice to ensure you have a working backup before upgrading.
2. Licensing
You may want to perform upgrade testing and user acceptance testing in your test/dev environment. For this please request a 30 day evaluation licence from Sales.
You are licensed to run both v4 and v5 in production for 3 months. This is to enable you to complete the migration and configure v5 before going live and switching your production use to v5. After 3 months your v4 instance will no longer be supported; if you have any concerns please contact Support.
3. Download and install SquaredUp v5
The installer will default to an In-place upgrade if it detects a SquaredUp for Azure v4 instance. This upgrades your v4 instance to a v5 instance. It is not possible to revert or rollback to v4.
If you prefer, you can change to a New installation at the Deployment Type screen. This will install a separate v5 instance which does not use any dashboards from your v4 instance.
This article will you lead you through the in-place upgrade option.
Carry out a in-place upgrade
For the full step-by-step guide see How to install SquaredUp for Azure.
- Download the latest version of SquaredUp
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Run the installer .exe that you have downloaded.
- Click Next
- Accept the Licence Agreement and click Install.
- Click Next to move on to check the deployment type.
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The installer will default to a In-place installation if it detects a SquaredUp for Azure v4 instance:
If you would rather carry out a new v5 installation click edit on this screen and then select New installation. -
Check that your v4 instance has been selected as the instance to be upgraded.
If necessary click edit and then edit again to select your v4 instance from a list of installed instances, and finally click ok twice to return to the deployment type screen.
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Click Next to move on to check the deployment location.
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Complete the installer.
If you have any queries or issues with the installer contact Support with a copy of the log file (accessible by clicking view log). If in the meantime you wish to evaluate v5 without your existing settings, you can change the deployment type to
New Installationto deploy v5 without migrating any settings. - On the Deployment Complete screen click Finish.
- You must now browse to SquaredUp for Azure on your normal URL, so you can run through the setup wizard to configure SquaredUp.
If the browser appears blank when browsing to SquaredUp, ensure the server's default browser is not set to Internet Explorer, which is no longer supported (search Windows > default apps). - Activation screen - enter your licence key and click Activate.
- Dashboard Packs - click Import.
- You may see the message 'Preparing your Open Access Dashboards please wait' followed by the Open Access screen. All Open Access dashboards will be regenerated in the new format for v5. Clicking Upgrade will regenerate all your Open Access dashboards now. If you have a lot of Open Access dashboards this could take a few minutes, so you may wish to click Skip Upgrade and regenerate the Open Access dashboards later from the top right-hand menu ☰ in SquaredUp > system > open access.
For each Open Access dashboard you will see the message 'Preparing your Open Access dashboard, please wait'.
4. Update or redirect Open Access URLs
All Open Access dashboards and perspectives will have been given new URLs in v5.
You must now either update all systems that are embedding Open Access dashboards or perspectives with the new URL (such as wall dashboards, Sharepoint, or other monitoring tools) or put some kind of redirect in place to automatically redirect traffic on the old URL to the v4 version. The Upgrade Assessment Tool will provide a list of the invalidated Open Access URLs and their updated value.
This can be achieved in a number of ways:
- IIS Rewrite rule
- Load Balancer
- HTTP Proxy forwarding rule
5. Configure SquaredUp v5
SquaredUp administrators
Decide which users should be able to administer SquaredUp and make them SquaredUp admins.
Redirect traffic from v4
Following a side-by-side upgrade, you may wish to re-use the URL that users were previously using to access SquaredUp v4. You may choose to do this now, or following user training. How you do this depends on how you were originally serving SquaredUp to users:
- DNS A/CName record change
- IIS Rewrite rule
- Load Balancer
- HTTP Proxy forwarding rule
6. Decommission v4
Backup
Before decommissioning and disabling your v4 instance, we recommend taking a backup of the SquaredUp files so that you can refer back to them should any issues come up in the future (most likely a user realising they had an unpublished draft they want to retrieve). You can then use the JSON files as a reference for recreating that content in v5.
Licensing
Once your migration has been completed and v5 is running in production, you have 3 months of support on your existing v4 instance before v5 is your only supported and licensed platform. This should give you enough grace period to migrate any users who did not move across immediately, and give you a fallback should any unanticipated issues arise during initial adoption. If you have any concerns please contact Support.
Redirect users from v4 to v5
If you haven't already done so you should redirect traffic from SquaredUp v4 to v5, see Redirect traffic from v4 above.
FAQ
I've upgraded SquaredUp but some of the built in dashboards are duplicated?
The v5 upgrade process preserves any dashboards that you have customised - any modified dashboards will be cloned and recreated in v5.
When v5 is installed we re-import the community packs bundled with the product (such as Windows Server, IIS and SQL). If you have customised one of those dashboards yourself you will now have two versions - the native v5 version and your customised v4 copy. It is up to you to choose which version you want to keep (or amalgamate the two).