How to Know When to Upgrade [Quick Tip]

When should I upgrade AGRIS?
In a perfect world everyone would install the latest release of AGRIS within days or weeks after it becomes available. But how do you decide when it is best to upgrade?

What’s to gain from upgrading?

The first thing to ask yourself is anything to be gained by upgrading. Review recent reports from your end users, to determine if there is a bug/error/limitation your users have been dealing with that upgrading would solve? Review the Release Notes of the available upgrade to determine:

• Determine if there are improvements/fixes/new features that would benefit your users.

• If there is nothing to be gained, perhaps, skip upgrading this time and see what the next software update or release brings.

Is now the right time to upgrade?

The next thing to consider, is it the right time to upgrade? If you use Payroll, it probably isn’t wise to start the upgrade right before pay checks need to go out. Generally, there is a lot of reporting and AGRIS work that needs to get finished at the end of the month, which would not be conducive time either. However, there are many of you that have a week or month throughout the year when things tend to slow down a little bit and are not as time sensitive. If so, it would probably be a good time to plan for and complete the upgrade.

What are the system requirements?

Lastly, you want to review the System Requirements and do your best to meet them. Greenstone’s System Requirements are what all our regression testing are based. If you are still running PSQL v11 or v12 and haven’t upgraded to either PSQL/Zen v13 or Zen v14, I urge you to upgrade. The product lifecycle for PSQL v11 and v12 expired some time ago and while they might still work, Greenstone can’t guarantee that will continue to be the case with future versions of AGRIS, and there hasn’t been any testing with the latest versions of AGRIS and sun-downed versions of PSQL in a long time.

Soon Greenstone will also be announcing support for Zen v15, so please keep that in mind when planning your next upgrade. It might be the right time to upgrade from v11, v12 or v13. Greenstone anticipates to continue to test and support v14 for awhile longer, so no rush if you are on that version currently, but it is always good to keep this in mind when making budgeting decisions.

Are you worried that the upgrade will not go as planned?
Perhaps you recall an upgrade in the past that didn’t go so well and caused unexpected downtime and it has caused you to reconsider upgrading. While Greenstone can’t fully understand all the things that might have led up to the situation or have complete control of the outcome, we can assure you our testing regiment and preparations going into a release continue to improve. It is rare that anyone on version 10.1 or higher ever runs into a dataset conversion issue or missing COM+ Components after having upgraded. Hopefully, Greenstone has restored your faith in the upgrade process since those dreadful times in the past.

Do you have to upgrade?
As a customer using AGRIS there is a contractual obligation to be on a current version of AGRIS. Greenstone’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Maintenance & Support Services states: Greenstone will provide support for the current or the immediately preceding version for up to 6 months after the then-current version has been released. Based on our current release schedule, as opposed to the release schedule when this SLA was drafted, we realize this is possibly an unreasonable expectation, and do not draw a hard line in the sand and deny support to those running older versions. However, it is Greenstone’s recommendation that AGRIS be upgraded annually unless there are extenuating circumstances preventing it.

As technology advances, and security becomes a bigger concern, Greenstone encourages you to upgrade to ensure that your AGRIS systems will continue to function as expected. We will continue to do our best to provide the level of support you require, even if you are still running an outdated version of AGRIS. However, Greenstone does reserve the right to not provide support for versions that predate AGRIS 9.6.x and would highly recommend you upgrade if you are on a version lower than AGRIS 10.1.x. Please note that you have to convert your data to a version between 10.1 and 20.3 before you can convert it to 21.1 or higher.

Additionally, Windows 7 and Sever 2008 R2 were discontinued By Microsoft in 2020. Greenstone will no longer support running AGRIS on those operating systems. Microsoft will be discontinuing support for Server 2012 R2 on October 10, 2023. Windows 10 will be late 2025, Server 2016 will be early 2027. Once Microsoft no longer supports them, Greenstone adjusts testing to the newer operating systems and no longer supports the older operating systems.