Introducing the Upgrade Impact Checklist

InterSystems Official

Timothy Leavitt · Nov 29, 2023

#System Administration #Documentation #Health Connect #InterSystems IRIS #InterSystems IRIS for Health #InterSystems Official

We are excited to announce a new part of InterSystems documentation that makes it easier to upgrade InterSystems IRIS® data platform, InterSystems IRIS® for Health™, or HealthShare® Health Connect. The Upgrade Impact Checklist at https://docs.intersystems.com/upgrade shows you all the things you need to consider – and only the things you need to consider – in an upgrade between any two versions. This takes all the content from our "Incompatibility History" and adds convenient filters, higher-level categories, and the ability to export the list as a CSV file so you can use it as a true checklist as you are working through an upgrade.

Here is a motivating example: my team recently upgraded an application from 2021.1 to 2023.1, and the behavior of some SQL queries changed. https://docs.intersystems.com/upgrade/results?product=iris&versionFrom=2021.1.2&versionTo=2023.1.1&categories=Core,SQL shows that there are 18 possible SQL-related upgrade impacts. One of them was a (good!) change to the SQL STRING function, and the impact item made us realize our SQL query relied on the old behavior. The checklist made it much faster to track down this issue.

The upgrade checklist is available for all supported upgrade paths for a given product, including upgrades between maintenance releases. We welcome your feedback on this new tool via the "Feedback" button on the page, as with the rest of our documentation. Happy (or at least happier) upgrading!

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a “Favorites” link in the management portal that would drop you right into this page with your IRIS version and the features that you’re using? I think so too! Keep an eye out, it’s coming soon via a new package on the Open Exchange.

3 0

Yuri Marx · Nov 29, 2023

Great idea, very nice. I suggest allow us select upgrade from cache to iris, not only cache with cache or iris with iris.

0 0

@Yuri Marx I appreciate the suggestion. We've thought about this, but the set of considerations for a migration to InterSystems IRIS are broader than fit in this format, and there are diminishing returns at this point for providing them via this tool. We also don't have data available in the right structure for older platform versions. There's a whole separate document covering IRIS migrations available from the WRC for supported customers - see https://wrc.intersystems.com/wrc/coDistDocs.csp .

1 0

Thanks!!

Ben Spead · Nov 29, 2023

Tremendous new feature - well done Tim and team :)

Benjamin De Boe · Nov 29, 2023

Yay, nice work Tim, and exciting collaborations that made this possible!

We're also trying to phrase the individual items in a more "actionable" way so they're easier to check off, rather than just describe what changed. On that aspect as well, are your feedback is much appreciated!

Jose-Tomas Salvador · Jan 18

I thinks there should be a specific check for changes that could lead to backward incompatibilities... involving for example fixing "a behavior long time supported by our product but not standard"..."new method signatures"... "class or method name changes"... etc...

Timothy Leavitt · Feb 1

If you don't feel like remembering the link (though it's worth a bookmark), there's also a link from the release information landing page now at e.g. https://docs.intersystems.com/irislatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls...