Preparing to Upgrade

Use the syconfig.exe and sybatch.exe utilities to upgrade SAP ASE versions earlier than 16.0.

Prerequisites
Warning!  Since it is not possible to downgrade once you upgrade to SAP ASE 16.0, make sure to back up all databases, including master and other system databases, before beginning the upgrade process.
Task
To perform an upgrade to SAP ASE version 16.0, run the preupgrade utility. You must have system administrator privileges to perform an upgrade.

The executable files that run the preupgrade and upgrade utilities are SyConfig (a GUI application that you start with syconfig.exe), and SyBatch (a command line utility you start with sybatch.exe).

Each new server version contains features that introduce parameters, commands, reserved words, and so on. The preupgrade utility prepares the old server by making sure all necessary directories and settings are correct for the upgrade. When running the preupgrade utility, manually stop and start the server. You need not start the server before running the syconfig.exe upgrade utility; the utility starts the server when needed.

If you are upgrading from:
  • Version 12.5.4 with cache bindings on sybsystemdb – drop the cache bindings for sybsystemdb that are bound to a user-defined cache before you run the preupgrade utility.
  • Earlier than version 16.x but later than 12.5.4 – from the SAP ASE 16.0 installation directory, use the preupgrade utility to perform the preupgrade checks on the old server. The utility is located in %SYBASE%\%SYBASE_ASE%\bin.

Manually drop objects before you execute procedures for the first time. The first time you run the server after an upgrade, the server internally rebuilds procedures from the text in syscomments. The procedure may not execute properly if it contains code that drops, then re-creates, an existing object.

  1. Go to the directory where your current version of SAP ASE is installed.
  2. Change to the directory ASE-version, where version is your current version of SAP ASE.
  3. Change to the bin directory.
  4. Enter preupgrade to run the preupgrade utility.