Prepared for Cerner Illuminations

Application
Platform Migration

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© 2003 Cerner Corporation. All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Agenda
Reason for Platform Change
Scope of Change
High Level Process Overview
Back End Changes
Front End Changes

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Agenda
Reason for Platform Change
Scope of Change
High Level Process Overview
Back End Changes
Front End Changes
Current Lessons Learned
Resources

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Reason for Platform Change
Historically, majority of Millennium clients used OpenVMS on
the Alpha chipset as the backend OS.
AIX was introduced to provide vender diversity.
OpenVMS passed through a number of vendors via acquisitions
HP announced that OpenVMS on the Alpha chipset would be
sunsetted with version 8.3
Prior to the announcement, platform migrations were generally
for clients that needed more than 32 CPUs
With the announcement, ALL clients on OpenVMS need to
move to Unix-based platforms (AIX or HPUX)
CernerWorks goal is Q4 2009
Client hosted sites will lag
Millennium 2007.19 will be the last boat leaving the VMS dock

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Agenda
Reason for Platform Change
Scope of Change
High Level Process Overview
Back End Changes
Front End Changes
Current Lessons Learned
Resources

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Scope of Change
Totally new binaries for Millennium Back End
BE printing utilizes new drivers and queue configurations
Unix is different
Case sensitive
No lock manager at the OS level for files
No file versioning
Korn shell used for scripting
Cust_script is unique to each app tier node
Custom code
VMS DCL needs to be rewritten to korn shell
File / directory names need to be reformatted within CCL
Code should be evaluated for new environment

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
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reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Unix-based Environment Constraints
Individual cust_script directories
Directories are on each app tier node
Replication of directory content has been determined to not be feasible
Cust_script has to be kept in sync across app nodes
Failover
Consistency
Millennium Operability
Discern Visual Developer will propagate compiled code to all app tier nodes but
not modified source code
Ops jobs could potentially run portions of jobs across nodes
Ops servers run on a single node
Ops servers spawn to Script Batch servers across cluster
No file versioning on Unix
Save once and it is “gone baby gone”
No file locking on Unix
Multiple processes can work with same file at once

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Agenda
Reason for Platform Change
Scope of Change
High Level Process Overview
Back End Changes
Front End Changes
Current Lessons Learned
Resources

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 High Level Process Overview
DB Platform Migration project has to occur before the App
Tier Migration
Because DB platform migration cannot support schema changes
Schema changes are a bundled part of an App Tier migration
App Tier migration is bundled with major code release
Efficiency in testing for the client
Need to have matching VMS / Unix [HPUX or AIX] releases
Matching HPUX releases for older VMS code may not even be in existence
IP retires old code
Patching back to old releases for different OS is not reasonable

Practice two mocks for migration

During first mock make all necessary App Tier build / modifications
Mock 2 is dress rehearsal

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
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reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Mock Process
Create a split Mock domain (VMS App & Unix Database)
New installation of Millennium 2007 will be installed on new
Target hardware
Upgrade New Millennium Installation to current CSP
Import Dictionary from VMS Application Server
Import Printers from VMS Application Server
Rebuild Interfaces/MDIs that are in the current VMS Application environment
Perform Uptime steps in split Mock domain
Go into downtime for Mock and connect to Mock database
with Unix-based Millennium App Tier
Complete database downtime steps from New 2007 Domain
Complete Special Instructions in VMS Domain (completion of
downtime not dependent on completion of Special
Instructions)

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
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reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Mock Process (example)
During Downtime
Ready to enter
PROD
MOCK
MOCK • Swap out VMS App Tier
downtime
(2007.xx)
• Replace with Target PROD
App Tier
2007.xx
Uptime
Create Mock
Steps

Built from
2007.xx
CD

VMS App Tier VMS App Tier Unix App Tier

(PROD) (MOCK) (Future PROD)

Unix app tier is actual physical hardware that will be used in PROD
After downtime, rebuild the following on the new Unix App Tier
Dic.dat
Printers
Interfaces

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

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2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
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reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Mock Environment – Post Migration

Database is named“Mock”
Domain (on app tier) is named “PROD”

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
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reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Prod Process (example)
During Downtime
PROD
PROD
MOCK
MOCK • Swap out VMS App Tier
(2007.xx)
(2007.xx)
• Replace with Target PROD
App Tier
2007.xx
Uptime
Steps

Ready to enter
VMS App Tier Unix App Tier
(PROD) downtime (Future PROD)

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
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reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Domain Access/Handling during Testing
Client may continue to open
SRs under “MOCK” in
navigator
“This domain is a test domain for
the migration from VMS to HPUX.
Consequently the database is
“MOCK” but the domain login is
“PROD”. Please contact < SE
Name> / <PM Name> with
questions regarding the
configuration”
Confirm with CernerWorks
client team for access
method and configuration
CernerWorks Teams may
modify the splash screen to
identify the special
configuration

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Agenda
Reason for Platform Change
Scope of Change
High Level Process Overview
Back End Changes
Front End Changes
Current Lessons Learned
Resources

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Back End Changes

Exception Pkg G
Exception Pkg C

Exception Pkg D

Exception Pkg H
Exception Pkg A

Exception Pkg B

Exception Pkg E

Exception Pkg F
Initial Install Upgrade Upgrade
VMS Platform
2003 2005.02.x 2007.18

Base Install
UNIX Platform
2007.18

Compare VMS platform package history to target

Millennium version to find unaccounted for packages
Client custom code (i.e. labels)
Exception packages that haven’t been brought forward
Get commits or agreements to move without

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Agenda
Reason for Platform Change
Scope of Change
High Level Process Overview
Back End Changes
Front End Changes
Current Lessons Learned
Resources

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Front End Changes
Front End approach is different since generally not deploying
new binaries
Start with copy of clients original FE code warehouse (VMS
based)
Overlay Unix FE code warehouse from base install
Install packages to Unix FE code warehouse as required
Robocopy deltas from Unix FE code warehouse to overlaid copy
to catch changes
Export/Import WTSLocation database (modify printers to
lowercase)
Advantages
You keep custom artifacts client has accumulated (chart formats, powernote
images, dictionaries, etc)
You pull in Unix specific deltas (if any)
16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.
 Questions

Questions

16TPL00033 – 07/31/2003

© Cerner
2003 Cerner Corporation.
Corporation All rights reserved. This document contains Cerner confidential and/or proprietary information which may not be
All Rights Reserved
reproduced or transmitted without the express written consent of Cerner.