Like everything in the technology world upgrades are requirement for systems for you to ensure you are staying up to date with Performance Improvements, Security Patches, Feature Enhancements etc. So with this in mind I have recently upgraded the company website to DNN 7.03.04 from 7.03.01. I did do an upgrade post previously – DNN 7.03.01 CMS Platform Upgrade which was slightly different as the website and database were both an Azure Website and Azure SQL Database.
Although the upgrade steps are pretty similar I thought I would provide this post to show the steps I went through on the slightly different environment. Following these steps provided a very smooth upgrade process.
Preparation
I like to work on the old adage – ” If you Fail to Plan, you Plan to Fail”, so with this in mind a little bit of prep work can go a long way to limiting issues and downtime with your own site during an upgrade.
Backup Environment
The backup process in my environment is to create a full database backup as well as a transaction log backup to allow me to roll back to a consistent point in time from before the upgrade process starts. To go alongside with the database backups, I am taking a full backup of the existing website files. Now I have a consistent point in time to be able to roll back to in the event of an issue with the upgrade.
Upgrade Process
The steps I am working through in this post is for an environment configured with a dedicated server, either an on-premise physical or virtual server or an Azure vm that is hosting your website.
- Create a new folder called Upgrade in your website directory structure. (Ie. wwwrootUpgrade)
- Download the 7.03.04 upgrade zip file from codeplex
- Extract the DNN_Platform_7.03.04_upgrade.zip to the Upgrade folder
- Copy the extracted contents to the website file. In my case to my test site first
- Start up your web browser and navigate to your home page and click on the login button
- Enter your Host account and Password | Click Upgrade Now
- Click the View Logs to ensure there were no issues with the upgrade
- Click the View Website Button
- Login with the host account | Navigate to Host | Host Settings in the menu to confirm your upgraded version
Good luck with yourr upgrade process and enjoy the new version of DNN
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