Blog for Project Management Practices by Pravin

Software Product Upgrade

Upgrades to the Software products are a regular process and almost everyone in Software Product Development must do it. As this is a regular process and everyone must do it, then what is so important to talk about here.

Software upgrades require replacing the existing running product, establishing the compatibility of existing customer data, allowing users to get into the system and helping users to continue the product without any disruption. This makes this obvious process more critical than it looks.

Here are some of the tips and checklist items to ensure a smooth upgrade event:

Preparations

Arrange everything in the order you need for an upgrade, scripts, code, installable and release notes. Get the package signed off by QA/DevOps.

Backing Up

Reserve the space to back up your DB, Application, and any important information you may touch during upgrade. If you do not have privileges to customer environment, ask customer IT to perform back up of key components.

Executions and Confirmation

However, this is a onetime step, but I recommend executing a couple of times at local and resolving if conflicts arise. For trial, you may ask the replica of production system to validate the execution and confirmation of steps. You may want to do any migration in this step. Validating the package over production look alike environment will surface the issues you may get at the last minute. Do not bypass or overlook any minor errors.

Data Integrity

Run the scripts/routine to establish the integrity of data after the upgrade. However, you have a very controlled environment, while you do not want to interrupt the business at the last minute. Count the key entities pre and post upgrade.

Go Live

Declare the go-live if your integrity test is confirmed and shows no impact on existing data.

Posted on: May 03, 2023 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)