Installation and upgrade

The ALM Installation Guide describes the system prerequisites and installation process for ALM, and the project upgrade process.

Step-by-step installation and upgrade guide

Windows	ALM Installation and Upgrade Guide - Windows
Linux	ALM Installation and Upgrade Guide - Linux

Download ALM

You can download the ALM installation packages from the Software Licenses and Downloads page. It requires a customer service ID, order number, or software serial number for software activations and downloads.

Breaking changes

This section lists the changes you must know before you install or upgrade to the target version.

Version	Changes
ALM 16.00	Send X-XSRF-TOKEN header with all requests Starting from ALM 16.00, after getting authenticated, you should send the X-XSRF-TOKEN header in all your subsequent REST API calls, except for the ones that use the GET HTTP method. Otherwise, you cannot access ALM resources using ALM REST APIs. For details, see "REST API Reference (Core)" on page 1 and "Site Administration REST API Reference" on page 1.

Version

Changes

ALM 16.00

Send X-XSRF-TOKEN header with all requests

Starting from ALM 16.00, after getting authenticated, you should send the X-XSRF-TOKEN header in all your subsequent REST API calls, except for the ones that use the GET HTTP method. Otherwise, you cannot access ALM resources using ALM REST APIs.

For details, see "REST API Reference (Core)" on page 1 and "Site Administration REST API Reference" on page 1.

Upgrade versions

The following table lists the latest ALM versions that support direct upgrade from previous ALM versions.

From versions	Latest version to support direct upgrade
ALM 11.0	ALM 12.2
ALM 11.5x	ALM 12.5
ALM 12.0	ALM 15.0
ALM 12.2	ALM 15.5
ALM 12.5x	ALM 16.0.x
ALM 12.6x	ALM 17.0.x
ALM 15.x.x	ALM 24.1
ALM 16.x.x	ALM 24.1
ALM 17.x.x	ALM 24.1

Explore ALM options

You've got plenty of options to plan your ALM future. Upgrade to the latest ALM version, move your ALM environment to SaaS, or switch to the ALM Client Launcher to remove the IE dependency and greatly reduce administration overhead.

For details, see Explore your ALM options.

ALM installation and upgrade FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions regarding the ALM/QC installation and upgrade process:

Q: I want to upgrade the Java build or replace Oracle JDK. What should I do to change the Java path on the installed ALM server without reinstalling ALM?

A: Java has been decoupled from the ALM installation starting from 12.6. You should handle the Java installation and upgrade by yourself. After you upgrade Java or replace Oracle JDK with OpenJDK, you should update the MICRO_FOCUS_JAVA_PATH environment variable with the new Java path for ALM use.

To update the MICRO_FOCUS_JAVA_PATH environment variable:

Stop the ALM service.
Install the new Java build.
If you are using Windows:

Open System > Advanced System Settings > Environment Variables > System Variables.
Update the MICRO_FOCUS_JAVA_PATH variable with the new Java directory. For example, C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_311\.

If you are using Linux:
1. Open the /etc/profile file.
2. Locate export MICRO_FOCUS_JAVA_PATH, and update the value with the new Java path.
3. Save the /etc/profile file, and in the current directory, run the source .profile command.
Restart the ALM server to apply the changes and clean the server cache.
Start the ALM service and validate if the service is running by monitoring the wrapper.log file, which is located in <ALM deployment directory>\log.

Q: Do you have information on how to upgrade to the existing SA schema?

A: Yes, please refer to the MySupport page by clicking on this link How to Upgrade Existing SA Schema.

Q: What are the latest system requirements when upgrading to ALM?

A: For a comprehensive list of version system requirements, see Support Matrix.

Q: How long does it take to complete the ALM upgrade?

A: The time it takes to upgrade to ALM depends on many parameters. Examples include number of projects, amount of users, size of each project, amount and size of attachments, hardware resources, network settings, and DB configuration. Therefore, we cannot predict in advance how long it will take to complete the ALM upgrade. To help with your upgrade, we recommend you first perform the ALM upgrade via a staging (testing) environment. This will provide you with a good estimation for the time it may take to perform the upgrade. It will also ensure there won't be blockers when you perform the upgrade on your production environment.

Q: We have a lot of ALM projects planned for the upgrade, and we are planning to use ALM Robot to facilitate this process. Where can I get more information about this tool?

A: See ALM Robot to find all relevant information about ALM Robot.

Q: We have noticed that our current version of ALM contains many Site Parameters set from previous installations. Is there a way we can get their descriptions and applications updated before upgrading ALM to the next version?

A: See Site Parameters.

Q: We have some integrations of ALM (latest version) with other OpenText products. Where we can find the integration supportability documentation between ALM (latest version) and other OpenText products we use?

A: See ALM integrations with other products.

Q: What add-ins or extensions does ALM contain?

A: For the full list of add-ins and extensions of ALM, see Tools, add-ins and extensions.

Q: How can I reach the MF ALM Upgrade Consultancy Team for my questions related to ALM upgrade?

A: For questions and assistance related to the upgrade of on-premises ALM /QC, contact us at the following email address: devops@microfocus.com.

Q: What new functionalities were added to the latest version of ALM?

A: See What's New in ALM 24.1.