Upgrades, Migration, and Maintenance
Keeping the platform healthy over time
Upgrades and migrations are where planning discipline pays off. Candidates must understand that an upgrade involves backing up the database, reviewing the supported upgrade path and any intermediate versions required, applying the new application server and client components, and then running the database upgrade step. Skipping a required intermediate version or upgrading clients before the server is a classic mistake. Version compatibility between client, application server, and database schema is a recurring exam theme.
Migration covers moving an environment between servers or data centres. The essentials are: back up the database, restore it to the target instance, reinstall the application server components and point them at the restored database, reconfigure service accounts and connection strings, then reinstall clients and revalidate. Encryption keys and stored credentials may need attention after a move. Environments should be validated with the same checklist used at initial installation.
Maintenance is ongoing: database backups and log management, index and statistics upkeep, monitoring of disk growth from logs and queues, licence renewal tracking, and periodic review of user accounts and roles. A trap is treating maintenance as optional until something breaks; exam questions reward proactive scheduling.
Rule of thumb: never upgrade production without first rehearsing the full path in a non-production environment using a recent copy of the production database.
Worked example: before a version upgrade, the team restores a production backup into a staging environment, runs the documented upgrade sequence there, records timings and issues, then repeats the same steps in production during a change window.