Spotfire server: Update the Operating System of Spotfire servers, or perform any event that causes unavailable period of time

Description

Spotfire requires that all of its Spotfire servers and its metadata database be in a stable and a valid state. Therefore, when updating the Operating System of Spotfire servers, or carrying out any event that causes a period of unavailability, then the following steps are recommended. 

Following this guidance means that your end users will not have access to your Spotfire server during the planned time period. If you have multiple Spotfire servers, then you might choose to update one server at a time, in order to avoid an outage. 

The below steps apply to the specific context of updating the Windows operating system, but can be applied for any condition that causes a period of unavailability.

Solution

Recommended steps:
- Notify end users to save their work and log out of Spotfire.
- Stop all Spotfire Server services (Spotfire TSS) and Node Manager services.
- If applicable, stop and disable database services on the database server.
- Change service properties from automatic to disabled in the services.msc window.
- Perform the Windows upgrade and required reboots.
- Test Windows post-upgrade and check system health.
- Revert the service properties back to automatic.
- Re-enable database services and confirm connectivity.
- Start all Spotfire Server (TSS) and Node Manager services.
- Test Spotfire functionality and check log files (e.g., catalina.log, server.log).
- Notify end users once testing is complete.
Any issues encountered are likely related to the Windows upgrade rather than Spotfire itself.