Upgrading RSA Authentication Manager

The following table shows the upgrade paths from earlier versions to the current release. In most situations, you can upgrade RSA Authentication Manager with or without patches. See the table below for situations where a specific patch level is required. Click the links to see the upgrade guide for each version.

After you upgrade to RSA Authentication Manager 8.9, you can apply the latest cumulative patch. The most recent patch is available on the RSA Authentication Manager 8.9 Downloads page.

Back Up Before Upgrading

Before upgrading or applying a patch, a backup is strongly recommended. Some updates, such as patches, are reversible, but major version upgrades are not reversible.

Note:  Make sure to save your RSA Authentication Manager backup file outside of the hardware appliance or virtual appliance.

If a major version upgrade is not applied successfully, you must restore from an RSA Authentication Manager backup file, an Amazon Web Services snapshot, an Azure snapshot or Azure Backup, a VMware snapshot, or a Hyper-V checkpoint. Trying to apply the major version again is not recommended.

For more information, see the Administrator's Guide.

Component Upgrade Guidelines

The primary instance and all replica instances in your AM deployment must be on the same version and cumulative patch level. Upgrade your components in this order:

1. Primary instance
2. Replica instances
3. Web tier (if necessary)

While you upgrade each AM instance, the other instances in your deployment continue to process authentications, allowing uninterrupted access to your users.

Note:  To use version 8.5 features, such as the embedded identity router and High Availability Tokencode when the connection to Cloud Authentication Service (CAS) is not available, an AM deployment that is already connected to Cloud Authentication Service must connect again after upgrading to version 8.5.

For more information, see the Setup and Configuration Guide or the Readme file for your patch or web-tier update.

Applying Patches

RSA provides cumulative patches for the most recent version of RSA Authentication Manager. You need to apply only the most recent patch to obtain all of the enhancements and software fixes. Web-tier updates are sometimes provided with patches.

Each version of AM includes most of the patches from the previous version. Any enhancements and software fixes that are not included in the new version are added in future patches for that version. The Release Notes and Setup and Configuration Guide describe which patches are in each version.