Facing potential upgrade complications, how can you ensure seamless backup and rollback plans?

Before any upgrade, your planning plays a vital role. How better you have planned will ensure how prepared you are to face any potential upgrade complications. Planning involves step by step procedure to implement the changes, teams involved , roll backup plan, downtime required and potential data loss if any. Having VM snapshot if it's a virtual server, system and user databases backups, backup of other database objects and jobs prior implementation is must and they must be placed at secure location where they can be retrieved if needed. Avoid In-place upgrade if you can , as you have least control over the upgrade process and recommend side-by-side upgrade for better control and ease of roll back if needed.

Creating a comprehensive backup plan is your first line of defense against update complications. This article highlights the importance of ensuring a complete backup of all data before making any changes. Utilizing full database backups captures the entire state of the database at a specific moment, including data files, transaction logs, and system status. Automating the backup process reduces human error, and regular verification of backups ensures their reliability. Storing backups in multiple locations protects against physical disasters and ensures quick recovery when needed. These practices are crucial for safeguarding data integrity and availability during updates.

Not only is it crucial to have regular backups of your data, but equally important is routinely and rigorously testing a clear-cut, step-by-step rollback runbook. Make sure the runbook can be executed by multiple people in the company to reduce dependence on a single point of contact. In addition, detailed monitors and and canaries should be in place to alert you at the first signs of a potential outage, and these alarms should come defined with their own corresponding runbooks for quick resolutions. If proper preventative measures are in place, the backups should hardly ever need to be dusted off.

Once backups are in place, it is crucial to test them. A backup is only as good as its ability to restore the data it contains. Regularly perform test restores in different environments to validate the integrity of your backups. This practice also allows you to estimate recovery times and refine your restoration procedures. Testing backups will highlight any issues that could impede a successful recovery, enabling you to address them proactively. Ensuring reliable backups and recovery processes is essential for data integrity and business continuity.

A solid rollback plan is a critical safety net for any update process. Clearly documenting every step required to restore the original system using backups ensures all dependencies and linked systems are considered. Including a checklist for pre- and post-rollback tasks, and assigning clear responsibilities to team members, minimizes the stress and downtime during unexpected failures. A well-rehearsed rollback plan can be the difference between a minor hiccup and a major disaster.

Even in a PaaS where you have 5 minutes snapshot availability you need to create a pre and post patching plan plus a rollback one (overall in the major flavours) Ideally, test the version in QA or DEV and then proceed in the productive env. And also test all the dependencies, in the case of PostgreSQL check pg% extensions as you could move onwards without applying new releases for them.

En mi empresa tenemos un dicho "La única copia de seguridad que vale es la que se restaura". Esto se refiere a que es tán importante hacer el backup como validar que es correcto, esta validación se puede hacer automática, en SQL Server puedes hacer un RESTORE VERIFYONLY para comprobarlo, o manual, programando mensualmente una restauración de las copias en un entorno no productivo. La importancia de utilizar herramientas de calidad como Veeam o scripts altamente probados, como el conjunto de planes de mantenimiento de Ola Hallengren para SQL Server hará que la fiabilidad y seguridad de tu plan de backup aumente.