Emerson Exchange 365

Feedback on upgrading from DeltaV 12.3.1 to 14.3.1

We are considering upgrading our DeltaV system from 12.3.1 to 14.3.1 next year. Just looking for any feedback from anyone who has done this on a physical network. What issues did you run into? What to watch out for? Recommendations?

• DeltaV #DCS

Jim Smith

• 19 Nov 2019 9:24 PM
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1 Reply

• Andre Dicaire

  

  • 19 Nov 2019 11:18 PM

  Definitely worth the effort to upgrade to v14.3.1, with the arrival of PK controllers and DeltaV Live, along with some other incremental enhancements.
  
  I highly recommend engaging with a your local Emerson services provider and including them in your upgrade team. Emerson will perform many more upgrades to v14.3.1 than anyone else and that experience is invaluable in any upgrade project. By the time you perform this next year, many of the issues we have experienced collectively as a community will no longer be valid.
  
  My recommendations are:
  - review the Release Notes for v13.3, 13.3.1, 14.3 and 14.3.1. Known issues and resolved issues are a moving target.
  - do not plan to migrate your DeltaV Operate displays to DeltaV Live as part or the upgrade. that way you don't complicate things and introduce display migration issues into the basic upgrade project. Migrate displays as a separate activity post upgrade.
  - review your current controller loading. The v14.3.1 release notes indicate enhancements to Cybersecurity and redundancy will have an impact on controller loading. (Cybersecurity is the gift that keeps on giving...) If you have controllers that are below recommended freetim or %Control Capacity, determine what you can do to increase freetime and do these things prior to upgrade. For instance, if you identify modules that you can slow their scan rate in order to free up CPU, do this prior to upgrade. that way your upgrade will have recommended CPU time and that will not be a support concern. After upgrade you can evaluate controller loading and possibly restore some module scan times. Point is, if you don't take the actions prior, then upgrade and have loading issues, and then you make changes in a rush, that is when mistakes are made.
  - Determine if any controller hardware will be swapped out. Either for controller loading (replace SDPlus with SQ or SX, or if you have MD controllers that must be replaced, do this at v12.3.1 if possible, that way you don't have to worry about adjusting configuration or module scans prior to upgrade.
  - If this is an online upgrade, controller switchover's are needed, so make sure your configuration does not have issues with switchovers. Perform a switchover prior to upgrading a standby. This lets you separate a switchover from a software upgrade issue. v14.3.1 has many enhancements that improve switchover behavior making it less susceptible to configuration choices. Those benefits don't arrive until both controllers are upgraded. Be familiar with how your system behaves on switchover so there are not surprises.
  
  When you get closer to the upgrade time, that's when you need to care about known issues and such. And there will be more experiences out there that match your project.

  Andre Dicaire

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