Upgrading Sisense

Note:

It is recommended to not upgrade more than three releases ahead at a time. For example, if upgrading from L2022.2 to L2022.7, the upgrades that should be performed are L2022.2 > L2022.5, then L2022.5 > L2022.7.
Read the Release Notes of all the versions prior to your current version, up to and including the version to which you are upgrading.
When upgrading an on-prem Sisense deployment, make sure to request the updated version of all premium and custom add-ons that you are using. The non-upgraded add-ons might not be compatible with the latest Sisense version.
When upgrading an RKE deployment from Sisense version L2022.3 or earlier to Sisense version L2022.4 or later, any modifications previously made to Grafana dashboards, alerts, notifications, etc. revert to the default state. To preserve your modifications:
1. Export your modified Grafana dashboards.
2. Perform the upgrade to Sisense L2022.4 or later.
3. Import your Grafana dashboards into the new version.
When upgrading Sisense in a Kubernetes environment, if your environment uses FSx storage and you are upgrading from Kubernetes 1.21 to 1.22, the FSx driver may freeze during the upgrade. If this happens, rerun the upgrade after rebooting the Kubernetes nodes. Therefore, it is recommended to perform the upgrade during off-peak or downtime hours. When upgrading both Sisense and Kubernetes, check that both the Sisense and Kubernetes parameters in the YAML file are set to true, that is:
- update: true
- update_k8s_version: true
Starting L2022.7, Kubespray is decommissioned. To upgrade from Kubespray to RKE, see Migrating from Kubespray to RKE.
If upgrading EKS to v1.23 or later, see Creating a Service Account for the EBS CSI Driver on EKS.
Downgrade and rollback are only supported by restoring to a specific backed up version. DO NOT attempt to downgrade by running the installer of a previous version on an upgraded system or by using 'helm rollback'. In most cases, these actions can lead to system and data damage.
To restore a specific backed up version:
- Make sure that you backup Sisense before all upgrades.
- Uninstall Sisense with removing user data.
- Install the previous version.
- Restore the backup of the previous system made before the upgrade.

Prerequisites

Access to the Sisense CLI
Sisense Linux V7.4.3 or later
A Minimum Requirements for Sisense in Linux Environments of Kubernetes for the upgraded version of Sisense is installed. You can check your version of Kubernetes with the command:
```
kubectl version
```

Skipping Compilation for Partner Plugins

Some partner plugins are delivered in a compiled format and should not be recompiled during a version upgrade. Recompiling these types of plugins during an upgrade may result in a crash due to timeouts.

The skipCompilation flag can be used to prevent the attempted recompilation of these plugins during the upgrade process. This flag is included in the plugin.json file of all certified plugins, and should be set to true to skip compilation for the plugin.

The plugin folders with the plugin.json files are found in the /opt/sisense/storage/plugins/ folder.

Upgrading Sisense in a Linux Environment

Backup your Sisense assets to ensure that your upgraded Sisense deployment continues to work as before, See Backing up and Restoring Sisense.
If you use partner plug-ins, see Skipping Compilation for Partner Plugins, (above).
Download the latest version of Sisense.
```
wget [sisense-linux-deployment-link]
```
Contact Sisense to receive the latest Linux archive file.

Extract the tar.gz file:

tar zxf [sisense-linux-deployment-package-name]

Copy your previous configuration file (for example, config.yaml) to the current installation folder.
Edit the config.yaml file:
```
vim config.yaml
```
Note:

This command is an example and may be different depending on the configuration file you used when installing Sisense.
In your configuration file, set the value of the update parameter to true.
If necessary, configure any other required parameter values. For a full explanation of each parameter, see Installing Sisense on Linux.
Run the configuration script.
```
./sisense.sh config.yaml
```
Your configuration settings are displayed with a message to confirm that you want to deploy Sisense with these settings.
Enter Yes to confirm that you want to deploy Sisense, or No to abort the deployment. If there are any issues when the deployment script finishes, view the installation logs as follows:
```
[installation-dir]/sisense-ansible.log
```
Restore your Sisense assets. See Backing up and Restoring Sisense.

Side-by-Side Upgrades with Restoring a Backup with Generic JDBC Connections

When importing a data model, or opening an existing data model, the old connectors pod must be up already, otherwise the JDBC connection will be blank.

For side-by-side upgrades that require a restore of a backup that has generic JDBC connections, do not perform the restore until after you perform the following steps:

Install Sisense.
Activate Sisense.
Scale up the connectors pod.
Restart the query pod.
Only after the previous steps have been performed, now perform the Sisense restore from a Sisense backup.

Watch this video about Upgrading Sisense: