KBEC-00378 - Key Differences when upgrading from 4.2 or previous Versions to 8.x

Summary

Upgrading from ElectricCommander 4.2 or previous versions to 8.x versions requires many changes. Many of these differences affect the usage of ElectricFlow. When upgrading from 4.2 or previous version to 8.x, please consider the following features, requirements, and changes:

• UUID, Universal unique identifier, will be replacing many ID’s within the system. The UUID is a 36-character string. Common entities that are affected are JobId and WorkflowId properties. To find more details on Properties changed to UUID please follow the documentation, UUIDs.
• Change tracking is a feature to keep track of and monitor non-runtime ElectricFlow objects. You can find more details at Change Tracking.
• Script Changes may be necessary, because of the switch to UUID. Any Scripts, within ElectricCommander, referencing JobID or StepId will need to be changed to use UUID’s. You will need to either manually change them or use the tools provided. Details can be found in the documentation, Migration Tool.
• Clustering - becomes available. Clustering is taking a series of ElectricFlow server into a clustered configuration. This allows for your ElectricFlow server to be horizontally scalable and highly available. Please see the Clustering documentation for more details. 
• With the Upgrade to 8.x, there will be an introduction to a whole host of features. Here are a couple key features, please follow their respective links for more details:
  • Application – components within a system. 
  • Pipelines – representation of your software delivery process.
  • Release – A module that manages the lifecycle of multiple applications enterprise releases.
• Please note these features and others will add tables to the existing DB, therefore will expand the size required of the DB. It is recommended to triple the space allocated to the DB.
• Also, the Flow application has expanded. It is recommended to double the space allocated to the ElectricFlow application.
• With the addition of these features, the Memory required to run the ElectricFlow will also increase. It is recommended to increase the amount of memory as well.
• For hardware requirements, please review the Hardware Requirements documentation.

With the release of 5.0, came a change in the Release Strategy for Commander/ElectricFlow. We have updated the release strategy to include feature releases, feature versions that will be added between Full Versions. For more details, please see the ElectricFlow/ElectricCommander Release strategy update.

For more details on the various releases and feature releases, please see our Release notes Documentation.