Hello there,
we got big issues with upgrading SEPM, that problem is not just to upgrade to one specific version.
Some time ago we wanted to upgrade a SEPM server from version 11 RU6 (MP2) to SEP11 RU7 (MP3). The upgrade failed and even the restore didn't work well. The SEPM server wasn't able to connect to the database again. There were no problems with the account, we were able to login with the sql login credentials to the sql database on the management studio.
This week we wanted to upgrade from another server from 11.0.7101.1056 (RU7 MP1) to 12.1.4023.4080 (RU4a) to fix the vulnerabilitie. According to this article http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH192779 the upgrade should be seamless possible. But we faced again this error like some months before and we aren't able to connect to the database again. We did the update on other servers without any problems.
Error messages are following "Failed to add server" and "Error 11501: Unable to create the database for Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager. Please click here for information". We already checked the connectivity to the SQL server and this is working as intented.
Those both servers where the update wasn't possible have in common that there is no SQL-instance - there is just the sql server with the database.
Has anyone else faced this error? How can this error be fixed?