We have a requirement to upgrade platform from Pega 7.4 to 8.7 with supported robotics manager component.We have 4 environments including production.While going through the pega platform 8.7/update jboss oracle pdf,went to a link
Basically which says that :Clone the database of your staging environment,perform testing ,Fix and then Upgrade the prod environment ,Deploy the changes and after Prod upgrade the remaining non prod environment should be upgraded.
I want suggestions on this process .Shall we not upgrade first the non prod environments?What are the benefits ?
Has anyone done upgrade with this approach ,Please share your experiences,challenges and best practices you adopted ?
By upgrading production first, End users get the benefits of improved performance and security enhancement from latest Pega Versions, much faster or earlier compared to process of upgrading lower environment first , then Production.
Some best Practices will be:
It should be basic upgrade.
As part of clone upgrade and testing ,
1.do not add new changes or implement new features in Clone. Adopting new features or implementing new functionalities should follow regular development process i.e lower to higher env.
Perform complete testing of application and regression testing.
perform a final confidence check of your applications in production by using a temporary production URL to a node within your production environment to avoid any surprises in Production post go-live.
Use Deployment manager to promote rules to avoid any manual errors.