This is the presentation we did at the Blackboard Teaching and Learning conference in Leeds (April 2011). It's about the roadmap we created to move from Blackboard 8 to release 9.1.

1. How to make a complicated migration manageable "You'll lose some, but the survivors come out stronger"

2. How to make a complicatedmigrationmanageable Implementing Release 9.x at Avans University of Applied Sciences Your hosts to this presentation are Bert Leene and Arald den Braber

4. Technical application management

5. Development

7. Technical application management

8. Development

9. Teacher in web application development & data communication

10. Project manager Blackboard migrations

13. Our goals

14. Preparation

15. Testing

16. After care

17. List of issues available

18. The icing on the cake!We'll talk about

19. First half of 2010 Getting to know release 9.1 Upgrade our building blocks Develop support materials  see the other Avans guys tomorrow First draft of the road map June 2010 Test upgrade with ACTUAL DATA Update the road map to an hour-by-hour road map based on the test upgrade Testing July 2010 BbWorld First week of august Actual upgrade Launch of the archive The original planning

20. Our goals Preserve the existing Content System data Upgrade during the summer break of 2010 Implement Blackboard Learn Release 9.1 Give our Building Blocks the NG look and feel Make an online archive environment available Upgrade the serverplatform to new 64bits technology Clean up our environment by deleting old courses

22. Availability of staff from different departments

23. External service partner

24. Determine the correct and most efficient order of steps

26. Needed to be smart since we had to go from 32bits to 64bits

28. These servers were correctly installed and fully tested

29. Actual upgrade would basically be limited to converting data

31. Step 1: Clone the production data for the test upgrade Old-DB New-DB Old Storage New Storage

32. Step 2: Setup a 32 bits virtual "throwaway" server withBlackboard 8 and upgrade this server to release 9.1. DB Virtual server

33. Step 3: Clone the Blackboard 9.1 installationon the virtual server to the 64bit cluster servers. Virtual server App3 App2 App4 App1

34. Step 4: Park the 4 application servers afterintensive testing App4 App3 App2 App1

35. Step 5: Restore the 32 bits virtual "throwaway" server to it'sinitial Blackboard 8 installation and shutit down. Virtual server

36. Step 6: Shut down the production environment Production

37. Step 7: Update the newstoragewith a freshcopy of the latestproduction data. Old-DB New-DB Old Storage New Storage

38. Step 8: Start the virtual "throw-away" server Virtual server

39. Step 9: The actual upgrade to Release 9.1 on the virtual "throw away" host. Virtual server DB

40. Step 10: Be reallypatient This presentation will continue in about 30hours Just kidding….. ……butbepreparedyou have to waitreally long before the Blackboard installer comes up with the "Upgrade completedsuccesfully" message.Onour system ittookalmost 30 hours!We thinkit was because we have a lot of ePortfolio's in the Content System.

41. Step 11: This is why the virtual server was called"trowaway server". Virtual server Virtual server Itdidit's job…. ....Itconvertedour database to a Bb9.1 database!

42. Step 12: Get the parked servers and turn themon. DB Bb9 App4 App3 App2 App1 Production

43. Great! We got the new Blackboard up and running!

44. Why is a test upgrade with real data important? Becauseoursfailed!

46. Our dataset goes back over 10 years and has been modified during many upgrades

47. Problem was solved by Blackboard and our third party technical service partner

48. Problem showed us the importance of testing with REAL DATA!What was the problem?

51. Upgrade during the Christmas break?

52. No access to the building, workremote

53. Performnew test remote upgrade

54. Communicationwhennotworking in the same room

57. Report the finishing of a certain step

58. Report problems or expected delays

59. SMS/Texting was used to send the triggers

60. Mail was usedwhen more details were important

63. The old production environment was planned to become the archive environment

64. This archive environment would remain untouched during the upgrade and would remain available in case of a disaster during the upgradeRisk management

66. Repair queries

67. Issues & Bugs

68. Behind the Blackboard  Find information & report issuesAfter Care

71. They needed work though

72. Givethem the Bb9.1 look and feel NG tags(http://www.edugarage.com)

73. Use the newconfirmation bars

74. Implement AJAX technology to reduce page reloads

75. Special attention (another trick) was needed in order not to lose modules and user defined preferences after installing the updated versions Challenge for BlackboardBuilding Blocks

77. Show announcements in a different way

78. Available on: http://www.supportjukebox.nl/bbtlcThe icing on the cake

79. Configure a Shownews module

80. Create an announcement for the module

81. Module can also be used on the frontpage Pictureson the frontpageshouldbe set to public in order to work

82. Thank You Arald den Braber Avans University of Applied Sciences acbjl.denbraber@avans.nl @bbbraa Bert Leene Avans University of Applied Sciences awj.leene@avans.nl @bertwh Graphics by Rick Dijs