Setup new Openfire/Spark Installation

Spark
1

Hi All

We have an old spark server with openfire 3.9.3 and using spark client 2_7_5. This is working fine and has been the last 10 years. We are currently migrating our data Center and have to change the spark server IP so I thought would take advantage and look at updating the openfire server and spark client. A few things I would like to know below

  1. Is there much advantage to upgrading to new Openfire and Spark as in user experience etc?
  2. Can I migrate the user accounts from old server to new server (They are stand alone accounts and not connected on AD)
  3. If I decide to upgrade can I incorporate into AD and is it an easy enough job.
  4. How long would it take to set all this up mas I have some time constraints around this.
  5. Is there a how to guide on how to do this?

Thanks
Darren

2
  1. Can’t decide for you and your users. Look through Openfire/Spark changelogs and see if you find features that can be useful for your or maybe bugs you run into fixed in newer versions. Just a head’s up, 2.8 versions are more strict about certificates, so test on one PC first. And file transfer is a bit degraded in 2.8. Should work fine in a single LAN still.
  2. You can update old server and then move database to new one, or move database and then update Openfire on the new server. If you are using embedded database, then it is located in the installation folder.
  3. That could be complex to also incorporate AD while moving/updating server and clients. I suggest to do one thing first (moving/updating) and then maybe think about AD integration, etc. If you’ll decide to switch to AD, you will lose current users and groups. Maybe that’s not so important, but worth thinking about.
  4. This depends on how savvy you are with Openfire/Spark and other things, also how big user base is. For a few users probably fast enough, for hundreds of users it can take time to update Spark on all PCs. Just updating and moving Openfire probably would take a few hours for me personally.
  5. There is no guide to do all the stuff you described, but you can check these two guides i wrote:
    Explanation: moving Openfire to a new server
    Explanation: upgrading Openfire