Challenge:
It’s always a question for everyone that whether we should upgrade to latest sitecore version or not?
Solution:
Alex Shyba wrote a nice article and provided Decision tree which will surely help you to answer above question:
Source : http://sitecoreblog.alexshyba.com/2011/02/to-upgrade-or-not-upgrade.html
UPDATE : 6/5/2011:
Just before couple of days back, gone through nice article from SDN on same topic with title “Sitecore’s Recommended Version Policy” — This explains Sitecore’s Version recommendation policy very well. Frankly, this article helps you to clearly understand your version upgrade process.
From article I made few of my notes, which I will be sharing with you:
1. Check Which Level of Version upgrade you have? Following table will help you out to identify update level.
|
Revision Level |
Description |
Required Upgrade Efforts |
| <Level 1> | Indicates a major new version of the product. Developers, users, and partners should attend supplemental training to keep their certification status up-to-date. Internal sales training, documentation, and training materials will be updated.
e.g. Sitecore 5.3 to Sitecore 6.0 Indicates Level 1 Upgrade. |
Major new versions require the greatest effort to upgrade. On average, upgrades for this level of release will take several weeks to implement. |
| <Level 2> | Indicates a release that introduces new features, these are typically UI changes and updates of, for example, XSLT files, ASPX files, or APIs. Documentation and training materials will be updated.
e.g. Sitecore 6.2 to Sitecore 6.3 Indicates Level 2 Upgrade. |
Upgrades at this level require a moderate amount of effort to implement. On average, upgrades for this level of release will take 1-2 weeks to implement. |
| <Level 3> | Indicates a release that contains minor structural changes.
e.g. Sitecore 6.4.1 to Sitecore 6.4.2 Indicates Level 3 Upgrade. |
Upgrades at this level require a minimal amount of effort. On average, upgrades for this level of release require less than a week to implement. |
| rev. <Level 4> | Indicates a release that contains bug fixes. Upgrades at this level require a minimal amount of effort.
The fourth level numbering is a date — yymmdd-n — and n is used if more than one build is made on the same day. e.g. Sitecore.NET 6.2.0 (rev. 091012 Hotfix 330275-1) Indicates Level 1 Upgrade. |
On average, upgrades for this level require a few hours to implement. |
2. From above table’s last column identify required upgrade efforts. Please note this upgrade efforts depends on your customization line. If you have customized Sitecore a lot, then this time will be increased. And also through QA is also required.
You must be eagerly waiting for source article’s link 🙂 — here you go : http://sdn.sitecore.net/Support/Versioning%20Policy.aspx
Happy Sitecore upgrade! 🙂
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