Upgrade from 5.3 to AEM 5.6.1 (SP2)

[SSathe]

Hi,

We are intending to do an upgrade from CQ 5.3 (on WAS) to AEM 5.6.1 SP2 (on CQSE)

The approach is what we are trying to decide and for the moment, this is our thought:

1) Install the new AEM 5.6.1 SP2 (on CQSE)

2) Install the CQ5.3 templates and components from existing CQ 5.3 instance. There is very little customization done on the existing installation.

3) Recompile the jar files and upload them in AEM 5.6.1

4) Install the content package from existing CQ 5.3 instance.

As this is not the regular 'inplace' approach suggested by Adobe, I would be interested in finding out if anyone else has done in a similar way and if yes any issues faced on their way to upgrade.

Regards,

Satish Sathe

[Lokesh_Shivalingaiah]

Technically it should work. but any reason why not following the inplace approach ?

[SSathe]

The only reason is that we have done a PoC following this approach in Nov 2013. And the reason we have selected this approach in comparison to "inplace" upgrade is that the Business team needed an "existing" CQ 5.3 instance to which we could revert back any time the upgrade seems to be in a risky situation.

[Lokesh_Shivalingaiah]

For that you can take a backup of your crx-quickstart folder and install with 5.3 anytime you want later !

[SSathe]

I agree technically it is possible to follow the approach that are saying, but do you think both the instances can co-exist at the same moment? In the approach that we have decided the only comfort factor is that both the instances co-exist and it is just a case of flipping over at the dispatcher level when need arises. Not that we are not confident about what we are doing but just to say to the business that we have this existing version living parallel.

[Lokesh_Shivalingaiah · Accepted solution]

You would have tested this well before migrating that on production. So it shouldnt be the case at all. Hence we would have kept the back up of crx-quickstart and if there are any issues on production, then you should just bring down your current 5.6.x instance. Use the backup crx-quickstart folder and start from 5.3 cq jar so that your old instance would be up and running

[Opkar_Gill]

Hi,

if you look at this from a purely technical view point, then both instances can be running at the same time. They share no resources/data, so as long as you start them on separate ports, there will not be an issue. You could even have them running on the same server(not recombined but possible) For example, when you develop locally, you have two instances running on different ports.

Going back to your issue, as bsloki has said, you should really have run a full set of regression tests on your migrated instance. An issue you will have if you are not confident in the updated instance and you go live, is how will you determine and then transfer any content that has been changed on the new instance to the old instance.

Regards,

Opkar