Upgrading to Discovery Accelerator 9.0

You are correct you would need to service pack the DA server prior to upgrade.

I would personally upgrade DA first, as a DA 9 server can talk to an EV8 server. but DA 8 cant talk to EV9.

Don't upgrade DA first. DA has a requirement for EV binaries to be installed first. 

Upgrade to EV8 SP4 and EV9 using the below outline for both

Stop all EV and DA services on both servers

Backup everything

Upgrade EV on the Archiving server using the upgrade process as outlined in the docs

When EV is finished

Upgrade the binaries on the DA server but do not run the config only install the binaries

Next upgrade the DA following the upgrade instructions that came with DA

Once you are sure all is working on EV8 SP4 repeat the process for EV9

You can install the API on the DA sever tho, and from the compat charts DA/CA 9 can talk to EV 8 all sp's. Or am I missing your point Scanner?

You are correct about it's ability to talk to EV8 but.. All support always recommend stopping the DA side and upgrading EV first then later go back to DA and perform the update. It has always been recommended upgrading the core first the take care of the peripherals once the core upgrade was successful

But in that case you cant keep using DA until you have upgraded EV. If you upgrade DA first, you could wait until EV is upgrade at a later point with no loss of function.

On another note I have spoken with a product manager at SYMC who suggested running DA 9 with EV8. This was due to my need of some bits in DA9 but an inability to use EV9.

Essentially tho we are arguing a non-event

Yes we are talking Symantecs hahahahah

Well, both servers will be upgraded during the same maintenance window, so availability is not an issue. Could the EV 8.0 SP2 server be upgraded directly to EV 9.0? I would prefer to only go through the process once. (I understand that with the DA server I have to do the SP upgrade first before going to 9.)

You can upgrade from any version of EV8 to EV9

Great. So does it matter if I upgrade the DA server first, since both will be done with an hour of each other? DA before EV was the recommendation from Symantec support; I just wanted to hear what the experts here have dealt in the "real world".