Prepare for the test update

The details for the following steps vary with your specific DBMS type (MySQL, Oracle, or SQL Server) and with your in-house database administration procedures. For database operations, the following steps only specify the desired result. Your database administrator(s) must determine the specific procedures they wish to employ to achieve those results.

1 Configure a testing system that is comparable to your production system and which has access to your database management system.

2 Create database dump files for each of the production database schemas that you need to upgrade. These files serve a dual purpose: as a backup, and as a way to copy your production data to the testing environment.

3 Define new schemas (one for each existing schema) to be used for testing. These schemas should have names that are similar to the production schemas, but which also include a suffix or some other naming convention that identifies them as belonging to the new release (for example "16.2").

4 Import the dump files created above into each of the new testing schemas.

IMPORTANT: If you have more than one deployment and are working with a copy of your production environment, it is critical that you do not run the compatibility script until after performing the steps in the next section (“Update Deployment Links”). Upgraded deployments that are copies of your production environment can still contain pointers back to your production environment and running the compatibility script in this state can cause your production clients to stop working with your production deployments. Only proceed once you are sure that your test deployments point only to your test environment.