We’ve been talking a lot about upgrades lately and figured this is a good time to tackle this subject. I know quite a few of us are terrified of upgrading any of our software. Most of us have good reasons – usually brought about by a nasty experience in the past.
Yet, upgrades are to be expected in any business. Particularly today, even the smallest of businesses use some kind of web ware that you need to keep current. Generally, upgrades are good from a security stand point. The older the software (especially web ware) the more prone you are to all kinds of exploitations.
Upgrades also bring you new features and fixes. The longer you wait, the harder it is to upgrade.
This is something I’ve experienced with a client. He has not updated one content management system for a long time. By the time he wanted to use the latest version, we had to do it in multiple steps. This is because there is no direct update from that very old version to the latest and there were multiple major upgrades in between.
In short, he saved by not upgrading when the upgrades were available but had to pay it all out in the end – and then some – because it took much longer and we had to do much more preparation so the site wouldn’t crash and burn.
It is OK not to jump at the latest version the minute it is released. After all, you want to maintain stability. Yet, you shouldn’t wait too far in between. Working out a upgrade schedule is probably a good thing. Be sure to evaluate the latest version in a sandbox version if possible. Make a list of all the customizations you’ve done in the past and checking against that to see if they will be affected by the upgrade.
