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You have simple life...
Imagine a few hundred customers... Each have one production environment and at least one test environment (some has two or three)... Each (can) have a different OS, with different patches and .NET Framework, different SQL (version and edition)... The network can contain from a one to n computers, each with different role (like printing server, SQL, app, web)... They may use NLB and clustering...
Now deploy an update to all of them...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: Imagine a few hundred customers...
I do.
Then I wake, screaming.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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there's an industry standard solution for that: lowest common denominator.
in particular for databases this is an imperative practice.
sounds like your company lost the plot and really should must that sorted (with everything else on hold) until that happens.
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lopatir wrote: lowest common denominator
Now explain that to the marketing, that sell - on paper only, and only on paper - new features for those are ready to upgrade...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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This is why we use Gopher for everything.
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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I doubt we would be able to use it, or that it would even mitigate the problem I describved, but gimme a link.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I was just joking! Some kind of grey-haired-semi-Luddite way of refusing to adapt new technologies. Smileys take all the fun away.
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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It's not so much luddite-ness as not having all of the servers on the same freakin version. It's madness.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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SQL 2008 R2 is already at EOL, isn't it? We jumped ours to 2016.
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What the customer cares about EOL?! He bought a license for 2005, and it still runs...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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He and I both work for people who are dictated to by yet another organization. A very annoying organization which pays no attention whatsoever to the real-world issues their dictates create. I often DISAgree with their ideas, and really want to tell them to STIG it where the sun don't shine.
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EOL is when a product becomes stable.
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I feel ya.. getting much needed SQL version updates in the near future, starting with DEV machines first
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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Without competition in inhouse development, I get off easy in a certain way.
I have a parallel set of all the main web-app pages. They live on production and differ only by a nuance in the name that distinguishes them. When a page in this set is opened it checks its own name and determines if it's targets are also live production or dev.
If and when everything works (a couple of competent testers who will also be the users for other development), the original files are archived for quick-replacement in an emergency and the dev versions are all saved to the live production names.
It already worked on production so it will work on production.
This works because, at least for quite a few years, it's all my private domain for development so there's no conflicts (human or code). Roll-backs are rare because we (myself and the testers/users) keep the attitude that this stuff has our name on it and one ought to have pride in their work (i.e., don't make a jackass out of yourself in front of 400-500 people). An error shows up in well under a minute after go-live, if there is one, with ca. 3000-4000 hit/hr for the internal site as a whole.
Ravings en masse^ |
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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The web app itself was fine (although I don't know what OS version is running on the web server). It's the db servers that caused the issue.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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That's the beauty of my luck position. I am developing the item where it will run - accessing the same DB's and all.
Usually they're generic and the actual SQL is by one of those two users (DBA's) - I need to make sure connections work, interfaces work, all the usual. Makes it all beautifully transparent.
But you're in a more realistic situation - unless someone will clone the entire production system for you, frequently, there's going to be deviations developing. If it feels a bit better, you'll probably find out it's a very small thing - but you know how computers are: "almost doesn't count".
Good luck with what certainly will be a tweak.
Ravings en masse^ |
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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You should hire me![^]
Seriously though, you might as well not test at all if your test environment is eight years more modern than your production environment...
I know it's easy to say, but your environments really should be as similar to each other as possible.
That makes it a lot easier to find environment specific bugs should they arise.
Maybe you can set your dev and QA environments in 2008R2 compatibility level[^] so at least your modern code doesn't work in those databases either even if it's supported by the engine?
I know you're in a difficult situation and such changes have to go through umpteen layers of management, but it's a thought
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FYI, the compatibility setting won't help. I checked and that function works fine under sql 2014 with a db comp. setting < 110.
This is a lesson (thanks JSOP) that testing should be done in the same environment as production. Our desktop apps are compatible with 2005 (90) so any possible breaking changes always get tested against that environment. I've been bitten by the backward compatibility issue more than a few times, mostly for dumb stuff like older versions requiring any field in the order by to appear in the select.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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The point isn't that we can't come up with a workaround. The point is that whatever workaround we come up with hasn't gone through a formal testing cycle prior to the deployment.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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The family craft! (7)
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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That's rather neat (assuming it's what I think it is, but I'm not around tomorrow so I'll leave it to someone else).
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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I liked it.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I'm assuming that no one has posted an answer because it is easy. It must be easy, even I guessed it in only a few seconds. [Just hope I'm right after making a statement like that]
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Perhaps we'll find out soon?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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