Decentralized Firefighter is a good option to allow your Firefighters to logon when the main GRC system is under maintenance and not available or to reduce the high availability of the main GRC system. On the other hand using the Decentralized Firefighter moves GRC functionality to your plugin system which need to be work together with the main GRC system. This usually means that if you upgrade your main GRC system you need to do an upgrade on the same functionality in the backend system as well. Sometimes it is an easier task (just implement some Notes), sometimes - especially if session handling related enhancements are made - it is not an easy task. Upgrading to SP 21 or above from a lower SP level is belong to the latter.
The introduction of the Logoff button and the changes under the hood is require that - if you use Decentralized Firefighter - you move these changes on your backend as well. This is not necessary a hard task, especially if you upgrade your plugin components at the same time with your main GRC system. On the other hand if you have many backend systems or your upgrade plan is differ in your plugin systems, you can easily find that the upgrade is became a nightmare and these functionality will not works as expected. With this post we would like to introduce a solution and a possible upgrade plan which was became available with the recently released enhancement with Note 3435355 (Centralized) and 3435356 (Decentralized).
In normal circumstances we suggest to have an equivalent SP level of your main GRC system (GRCFND_A) and your plugin systems (GRCPINW). This is described in Note 1352498. The equivalency not necessary means that you need to have the same SP, it can be also achieved by implementing the same Notes. What you need to ensure that the functionality between your main GRC system and your plugin works and communicate the same way. What means "A" in the main GRC system should be "A" in the plugin system as well.
Note 3435356 can give you the option to handle the new functionalities released recently and provide an old behavior of the Firefighter Logon Pad. By implementing Note 3435356 to your existing plugin system (with all the prerequisite Notes), and then set SPRO parameter 4031 and 4032 to YES you will be able to use an upgraded version of the Decentralized Firefighter to be fully compatible with any Centralized scenario which is older than SP 21. With this compatibility mode you will be able to upgrade your plugin systems to the latest code level, and if all of your plugin is already upgraded you can also upgrade your main GRC system as the last step. With this you will be able to use Decentralized Firefighter at any time without you would need to upgrade your plugins at once in the same time.
To summarize what we suggest as a working upgrade plan.
1.) first you need to upgrade your plugin system (GRCPINW) for any newer SP level (preferably the latest one, but will works above SP 21 for V1200 or SP27/28 for V1100_700/731).
2.) Then implement Note 3435356 with all the prerequisites into this plugin system.
3.) After the Note is implemented set the Plugin side SPRO parameters 4031 and 4032 to YES. (Now you can use this plugin with your old main GRC system)
4.) Repeat Step 1-3 in all of your plugin system based on their annual Upgrade process
5.) After all of your plugin system is upgraded (where you use Decentralized Firefighter), you can upgrade your main GRC system (GRCFND_A) as well to any equivalent SP level above SP 21.
With these steps the hard part of moving to above SP 21 can be achieved with planning it a little bit easier.
