How often do you update your server applications?

[Brant Schroeder]

How often do you update your server applications?  Every release? Every month?

[JP _AC Bielefeld Leader_]

Hi,

I'm responsible for the administration of three production servers (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket) , three staging server & three test / dev servers. All run as VMs with VMware. Database is centralized for all on a production & test/dev/stage DB server.

On minor updates (6.14.0 -> 6.14.1) I normally do an upgrade on staging first after checking release notes & fixed issues. This is done when I got some idle time at work. It's a pretty straightforward process: Check apps /addons for compatibility, where I know beforehand which addons could cause problems (Scriptrunner, nFeed,...). I'll try to update within three weeks of a release.

Production server are upgraded, if staging show no flaws, about a week later if everything is OK. Sometimes earlier, if a major bug or annoyance is fixed. Sometimes I skip a minor release, if no relevant issues are fixed or the functionality isn't important for us (eg. Datacenter features only...).

Major upgrades (6.13.x -> 6.14.0) are done on dev/test before, then on a new staging system using the same new data as production and on production afterwards, if the addons are (mostly) updated to a compatible release (Mostly, because we use some free addons, which are very useful but don't have a regular maintainer. Their function / compability is tested before).

So wrap it up:

- Minor releases normally within a month from stage to production

- Major releases about once a quarter from dev/test to stage to production

Best

JP