[rt-users] RT 3.4.x and RT 3.6.x on same backend DB?

[Kenneth Marshall]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 06:27:23PM -0400, Mathew wrote:
> Kenneth Marshall wrote:
> > Hi RT community,
> > 
> > In order to facilitate the testing, development and migration
> > from our current RT 3.4.5pre1 to the RT 3.6.4 release, I would
> > like to run both versions  against the same database backend.
> > The additional attributes that are added to the database by the
> > etc/upgrade/3.5.1 script do not appear to conflict with anything
> > in the 3.4.5pre release. Assuming that the session table information
> > is still the same, it appears that both RT versions can be in use
> > simultaneously against the same database with no ill effects. Has
> > anyone tried this? Am I missing any possible problems?
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Ken
> > 
> 
> This is a bad idea in general.  Any testing environments should be based
> against their own databases.  The last thing you want to do is corrupt
> your production database should something go wrong with the development
> environment.  I just make a dump file of the live database and import it
> into the development environment whenever I need new data to work with
> 
> Mathew
> Keep up with my goings on at http://theillien.blogspot.com
> 
Mathew,

I agree with you. The actual initial development and preliminary testing
is against a separate copy of the database. Once all of the basics are
debugged and working properly, we have a training/migration to the new version
hurdle. If we can have training go against the actual production data,
then the migration can be performed in a rolling fashion across the
userbase. Also, it is much easier to get thorough testing if the testers
can use the system in their actual work environment. They can always
fall back to the old production instance if they find a problem. Requiring
users to double-enter ticket updates to test and evaluate the new system
results in missing many of the weird corner cases. These are not giant
database trashing problems, but can take time to isolate and fix.

Regards,
Ken