The distinction between hard and soft upgrade dependencies allows for the possibility in your upgrade plan of selectively upgrading Java ES product components within a deployed system.
Selective Upgrade. In this approach you start with the Java ES product components you wish to upgrade to Release 5U1. You determine the hard upgrade dependencies for that component; those components also need to be upgraded. Repeat this process for each successive hard upgrade dependency until no further components need to be upgraded. This exercise specifies all Java ES product components that need to be upgraded.
Upgrade All. In this approach you upgrade all deployed Java ES product components to Release 5U1. In some cases, due to the complexity of a deployment, upgrading an entire system at one time is not feasible for business reasons.
The two approaches to performing upgrades are compared in the following table:
Upgrade Approach |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
---|---|---|
Selective upgrade |
Minimizes number of components to upgrade |
Results in inconsistent versions for all components in your deployed system |
Upgrade All |
Maintains a consistent version for all components in your deployed system |
Maximizes the number of components to upgrade |
The choice between Selective Upgrade and Upgrade All is not rigid. For example, you might choose to selectively upgrade the product components on a particular computer, but wish to upgrade all shared components needed to support the selected product components.