Tip #1238: Painless upgrade from 8 to 9

Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200

Chance and Community Chest card

When planning upgrade of your 8 or 8.2 on-premises instance to version 9, there are two rules:

  1. Do not, I repeat, do not consider in-place upgrade.
  2. Raise a support ticket and get yourself a build 9.0.02
    EDIT: download service update 0.3

If you are using VMs either on-premises or in Azure, or if you have spare physical capacity, always, I repeat, always go for the first option which is Migrate by using a new instance of SQL Server. Why? Because it’s painless and fast. Do you really run your current version on Windows Server 2016 and SQL Server 2016? I’m asking because both are required. You don’t have to go through painful upgrades if you opt for a new instance. Just install RTM build, add the 0.02 patch (is it like $0.02 patch?!)

EDIT: ignore the rest as service update 0.3 is available for download.

Why to create a support ticket? Because if you use RTM build of version 9, changes are that during the organization upgrade you will receive an error message at the last mile:

Error : The AttributeLookupValue (Id=81cde1dc-2241-db11-898a-0007e9e17ebd) entity or component has attempted to transition from an invalid state

Build 0.02 takes care of that nasty error and for every single version 8 or 8.2 databases we imported so far, the upgrade did take a bit of time but it went as smooth as butter.

Cover photo by Paul Felberbauer

9 thoughts on “Tip #1238: Painless upgrade from 8 to 9

  1. Yvan Leclerc says:

    Great tip! Thanks!

    Microsoft released build number 9.0.3.7 on April 4. Do we still need to get the 0.02 from a ticket with them?

  2. James R says:

    Hi George

    I guess I already know your answer but we have an environment with SQL 2016 and Server 2016 already set up so to me it would be a lot less effort to do an in place upgrade to take us from 8.2 to 9.x. I would interested to know if anyone else has tried it. We have test environments that we can try it on first prior to taking the plunge, if we decide to.

    • James,

      in this scenario your best bet is to do what’s called Migrate by using the same instance of SQL Server, i.e. new Dynamics 365 server and in-place upgrade for SQL. Just make sure you have the full SQL backup – that’d be the only thing to restore if things go pear shape.

      Cheers
      George

  3. Nick says:

    George,
    Great post, one thing i wants to get clarification on what makes you create first rule?
    Do not, I repeat, do not consider in-place upgrade.

    1) Technically, you cna have backup and snapshots of Instances before Migration/upgrade, so incase if we do In-place upgrade and something goes wrong, you can always restore snapshot back, correct?
    2) Any details on what common errors or issues, that comes while doing that? Did Microsoft resolved any such incidents or are there any known errors/article about the issues?

    Thanks,
    Nick

    • Nick,

      1. With all the backups and snapshots you’re still facing downtime for the in-place upgrade. Which will be substantial if you need to prop your OS and SQL versions. And especially when things go wrong because you will have to restore. Why go through all this pain when a simple additional instance eliminates the drama?
      2. I have not seen any dramas lately when an OOB instance gets upgraded. Where things tend to go wrong are unsupported customizations, SSRS reports, tweaks to SQL Server (unsupported by definition), third-party solutions.

      HTH
      George

  4. AJAY says:

    Hello (and not to get too technical with the word “upgrade”… this sounds like setting up a new VM with new MSD version)

    Is this recommendation something special for just 8 to 9 upgrade – or for all MSD upgrades in general. We have some downstream impacts – so answer to this question will help us formulate an overall strategy for upgrades. (We have several custom apps that do in-place upgrades)

  5. Halson says:

    Hi,

    How do you do a migration upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1 or 8.2?
    we have new servers (windows server 2016) ready. but the problem is I cant install Dynamics 8.0 on 2016 server as its not compatible? And I could only find an “Update 2.5” for 8.2. I Couldn’t find a full install. any suggestions?

    Cheers
    Halson

  6. Greesha says:

    I want to upgrade my on Prem instance to online and it is currently in 8.x version.

    Is it mandatory to upgrade the instance to 9.0 in Prem and go online or I can directly go online upgrade?

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