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A Way to Upgrade Tableau Server v8 through v10. Also, the method to Restore Tableau Server too!

Upgrade Tableau Server quickly – first please read below statement before beginning the upgrade! These are safety tips and explaining our experience.

Upgrading Tableau Server is Easy, Fast, and Painless!

Tip: Steps 1-3 are not necessary for later versions of Tableau Server. Check out our video embedded below.

It’s not a lot of steps. Do not skip steps, they are designed to keep everything safe and backed up. I know it’s a common practice to skip to the part that you think you should be on. Be aware skipping may cause more downtime.

If the Server is active, the best practice is to schedule an outage across all the users. To ensure during the process no one loses their work by mistake.

How to Upgrade Tableau Server Steps and Best Practices

  1. Run CMD as admin, shift right click then run as admin.
  2. Stop the service
    • Tabadmin stop
  3. Check if down
    • Tabadmin status
  4. Generate backup file
    • http://kb.tableau.com/articles/knowledgebase/server-maintenance
    • tabadmin backup <*directory w/ file name*>
    • copy and paste this file to the VM desktop and the local machine desktop
      • Keep more than one copy of this during the upgrade process, especially if there is only one instance of tableau server running (production instance)
      • If you’re unable to get a clean VM to do a fresh install on: Do the following to clean up all old metadata and tableau related files
  5. Full Uninstall Tableau Server
    • Add/remove programs – Uninstall Tableau Server
    • OR Use the uninstall .exe in the Root directory
    • If tableau server was ever installed on the C drive (check always):
      • Open c:\programdata
      • If c:\programdata\tableau exists, remove it after the uninstall
      • Including any Tableau Server related directories
  6. Restart the OS
  7. Navigate to www.tableau.com/Server
    • Download latest version of Tableau Server
  8. Install Tableau Server
    • NOTE: Use anything other than the OS Drive (C:) to avoid the
      • generation of c:\Programdata
      • avoid competition for resources with the OS
    • Install Tableau Server on its own drive!

After Upgrading Tableau Server – Restore Tableau Server – Steps and Best Practices

Okay, you are done with above, now you need to restore Tableau Server. Take your time, make sure everyone is aware of this outage, don’t skip steps.

Restore Tableau Server can be done quickly if your backup isn’t massive.

  1. Restore from the previous Backup
  2. Test connection to localhost
    • check content
    • users
    • security
    • etc
  3. Restart VM
  4. Update any scripts to point at new BIN directory
  5. Update environment variables to point at new BIN directory

Our Experience Updating and Installing Clustered Tableau Server

Here’s a picture of Tyler Garrett, onsite at GoPro – pointing at the GoPro Tableau Server frontend.

Tyler-Garrett-at-GoPro-Headquarters -solo pic

Hanging with the GoPro crew, helping customize their Tableau Server frontend and architecture for long term scalability for years to come. Generated custom scripts, custom UI, and advanced Tableau Server training. Holding a GoPro camera!

Steps that explain how to protect your environment and content on Tableau Server. Also to help minimize the outage. Do your best to follow along.

These steps work if your environment settings are ready for the Tableau Server Upgrade. Grab your sysadmin if there are lots of interesting permissions or read/write problems.

Server Best Practices we recommend

Run a backup at any time with recent Tableau Server versions. We would recommend running a backup daily at night. If you have a lot of content, it will take a little bit to backup everything.

Sometimes can cause outages, be prepared. Work with senior staff before trying to backup a massive file. There are lots of versions of Tableau Server running in enterprise companies.

Warning Before upgrading Tableau Server

Some of these moves can cause an outage. Work with senior staff before trying to backup a massive file. There are lots of versions of Tableau Server running in enterprise companies.

Tyler-Garrett-at-GoPro-Headquarters

Hanging with the GoPro crew, helping customize their Tableau Server frontend and architecture for long term scalability for years to come. Generated custom scripts, custom UI, and advanced Tableau Server training.