How to Upgrade from 7.1 to 10.1 (4306241)

Upgrading the KACE Systems Management Appliance multiple versions requires planning, as it is important to consider environmental variables as well as selecting an approach.

Traditional Approach: Traditionally the SMA is upgraded within a version or two from the maximum version. When using this method, the agents should meet minimum required versions for upgrading and it should be possible to upgrade the server by two versions without orphaning the agents.

This approach may also be used when there are no other methods available for provisioning the agents (Not on a domain for GPO and WinRM not available). In the case of the latter, it is extremely important to take note of each minimum agent version required for each server version and plan the upgrade accordingly, as to ensure the server is not upgraded too quickly orphaning the agents.

Alternative Approach: Agent versions can be ignored when the server is more than 2 major releases out of date, but all agents will likely require re-provisioning. If a server is several versions behind (e.g. 6.x upgrading to 10.x), it may be faster to follow the server upgrade path while ignoring agents until the server is up to date. Once the server is up to date, auto agent upgrade may fail. If it does, simply re-provision agents using built-in provisioning (which supports WinRM as of version 6.4) or GPO (using the provided GPO Tool available in the download portal).