Upgrading FME Engines

From fmepedia

 (http://fmepedia.com/index.php/Category:FME_Server)

Introduction

The FME Engine is the component in FME Server that performs the actual data translations and transformations. At times FME Server administrators may want to upgrade their FME Engines while leaving the other FME Server components as is. This may be desirable in order to provide support for formats recently added to FME or other newer functionality provided by a new release of FME without tampering with other FME Server components that do not require upgrade.

The procedure below uses the FME Engine installer provided on our website and can be done with an official release or with an FME Beta release.

Caution

We try very hard to ensure that FME is backwards compatible. In other words a new FME Engine should always be able to run an old workspace. Sometimes however we inadvertently change something that creates problems for a workspace in an new FME Engine. For this reason we suggest not over-writing your FME Engine in the steps below but installing the new FME Engine in its own path. This way you can very easily reverse the upgrade if needed.

Steps

1) Download the appropriate FME Engine Installer from the "FME Server Download Page" (http://www.safe.com/products/server/serverdownloads.php). The password for this page can be obtained from your Safe Software Account Manager or from sales@safe.com.

2) Run the FME Engine installer on any machines running FME engines you want to upgrade. Ideally you will leave the existing FME Engine in place as a back-up and create a new path for the FME, for example you will already have an FME engine here:

<FMEServerDir>\Server\fme\  

and you could create a new directory here:

<FMEServerDir>\Server\FMEEngineUpgrade\

3) You will need to license your new FME Engine(s) with an FME Engine level floating license. For detailed licensing instructions please see the "FME Installation and Licensing Guide" (http://docs.safe.com/fme/2008/pdf/FMEInstallationLicensing.pdf)

4) Using a file explorer make a copy of the file <FMEServerDir>\Server\FMEEngineUpgrade\fme.exe, place the copy in the same <FMEServerDir>\Server\FMEEngineUpgrade\ directory but rename it to FME_Engine.exe. You don't have to do this for Linux or Solaris.

5) On any machine running FME engines, edit the file <FME Server>\Server\processMonitorConfig.txt, look for the lines that start FME Engines, for example,

CMDStartFMEEngine_3="C:\\Apps\\FMEServer\\Server\\fme\\FME_Engine.exe"...  

Change these lines to:

CMDStartFMEEngine_3="C:\\Apps\\FMEServer\\Server\\FMEEngineUpgrade\\FME_Engine.exe"...

On Linux and Solaris the line will look like this:

CMDStartFMEEngine_3="/opt/fmeserver/Server/FME2010/runfme" ...

6) Restart FME Server.

7) To confirm you are using the upgrade FME Engine from the new path and that you are using the Build of FME you require, check the processMonitor log on any machine running an FME Engine:

<FMEServerDir>\logs\processMonitor<date>.log.   

You should see some lines that start:

CMDStartFMEEngine_2 command "C:\\Apps\\FMEServer\\Server\\FME2010\\FME_Engine.exe" REGISTER_SOCKET BIGGS 7070
      Feature Manipulation Engine 2010 (20090626 - Build 6185)                                          
                     FME Engine (Workbench Included)                                           
                         Permanent License.                                                             
                    Machine host name is: Biggs                                                         
                     Copyright (c) 1994 - 2010                                                          
                         Safe Software Inc.

You can also check the build number of all currently running FME Engines through the FME Server admin web interface.