I have a site which is currently live and continually gaining new member registrations. It is running v7.4.2
The site is undergoing a significant re-design (mainly visual, but some functionality). I am looking at upgrading it to the latest version 7.10.4
I am sure that will, with the necessary patience, work out fine on our development environment(s), but what about releasing the fully upgraded site back to live?
Mainly, I think, I am concerned that there may be database updates which won't get implemented when the site is released to Live.
Unfortunately, I can't use the Development database as the site will continue to be live during the upgrade process and will therefore be gaining new Members. Content updates will be halted though.
When you apply the updated DLL's and Umbraco files to the website it will (aslong as you don't override your webconfig), know that the site has been updated. It will then prompt you to authorise the updated on the live site.
In turn, this will apply any database changes that Umbraco needs to your live database.
In the redesign of your site, if you are including any custom tables etc. I would look at using Migrations to apply your custom tables (and any changes) to you live database.
I have checked https://our.umbraco.org/download/releases/ and there are a few "significant" upgrades. I assume that I can go through and deal with all of those on our dev environment, then everything will be sorted when the site files are released to live?
I appreciate that there will / may be config file issues to consider.
Edit:
Also, is it best to step through the version upgrades, or can I "jump" straight to 7.10.4? I am using Visual Studio / Nuget.
With upgrades I tend to upgrade to the latest patch release for the minor version I am on (in your case V7.4.3) and then move through each on the minor releases using the latest patch (7.5.14 then 7.6.13, etc).
I would not suggest doing a full jump to 7.10.4 as this can sometimes be too big a jump and can lead to difficulties knowing where any issues come from. I would suggest you do an upgrade test it in development then apply that same upgrade on live (So apply an upgrade to V7.4.3 on development then on live). This will stop any jump being too big on live and potentially causing issues there (do ensure when deploying to leave umbracoConfigurationStatus in web.config unchanged!)
There are some breaking changes at 7.6.0 that you need to consider (ensure useLegacyEncoding is set to true and EnablePropertyValueConverters set to false). Other than these everything tends to go well.
With Nuget perform each upgrade and just ensure no changes you've made to config files are lost (e.g. after 7.6.0 ensure useLegacyEncoding isn't set back to false!)
Upgrade process for a Live site
I have a site which is currently live and continually gaining new member registrations. It is running v7.4.2
The site is undergoing a significant re-design (mainly visual, but some functionality). I am looking at upgrading it to the latest version 7.10.4
I am sure that will, with the necessary patience, work out fine on our development environment(s), but what about releasing the fully upgraded site back to live?
Mainly, I think, I am concerned that there may be database updates which won't get implemented when the site is released to Live.
Unfortunately, I can't use the Development database as the site will continue to be live during the upgrade process and will therefore be gaining new Members. Content updates will be halted though.
Is there a good / safe way to do this?
Hi Gordon,
When you apply the updated DLL's and Umbraco files to the website it will (aslong as you don't override your webconfig), know that the site has been updated. It will then prompt you to authorise the updated on the live site.
In turn, this will apply any database changes that Umbraco needs to your live database.
In the redesign of your site, if you are including any custom tables etc. I would look at using Migrations to apply your custom tables (and any changes) to you live database.
Does that help?
Thanks,
Nik
Hi Nik,
thanks for your reply.
I have checked https://our.umbraco.org/download/releases/ and there are a few "significant" upgrades. I assume that I can go through and deal with all of those on our dev environment, then everything will be sorted when the site files are released to live?
I appreciate that there will / may be config file issues to consider.
Edit: Also, is it best to step through the version upgrades, or can I "jump" straight to 7.10.4? I am using Visual Studio / Nuget.
Hi Gordon,
With upgrades I tend to upgrade to the latest patch release for the minor version I am on (in your case V7.4.3) and then move through each on the minor releases using the latest patch (7.5.14 then 7.6.13, etc).
I would not suggest doing a full jump to 7.10.4 as this can sometimes be too big a jump and can lead to difficulties knowing where any issues come from. I would suggest you do an upgrade test it in development then apply that same upgrade on live (So apply an upgrade to V7.4.3 on development then on live). This will stop any jump being too big on live and potentially causing issues there (do ensure when deploying to leave umbracoConfigurationStatus in web.config unchanged!)
There are some breaking changes at 7.6.0 that you need to consider (ensure useLegacyEncoding is set to true and EnablePropertyValueConverters set to false). Other than these everything tends to go well.
Paul explains this well on https://codeshare.co.uk/blog/how-to-upgrade-umbraco-safely/.
Hope this helps.
Andy
Hi Gordon,
With Nuget perform each upgrade and just ensure no changes you've made to config files are lost (e.g. after 7.6.0 ensure useLegacyEncoding isn't set back to false!)
Hope it goes well!
Thanks Andy
is working on a reply...