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Hard lessons2025-01-30 · Archive

Shipping on-prem software: upgrades need more than a restart

A commenter points out that customer-hosted upgrades involve backups, database migrations, version differences, and control.

The takeaway

A deployment command is only part of an upgrade path.

The context

Discussing an on-prem deployment tool, rudasn raises backups, migrations, and steps that depend on the installed version. They also request progress feedback and audit exports. These are product requirements rather than measured failure data, highlighting the need to account for customers’ existing state.

Steps worth trying

Editorial suggestions, not promises made by the original author.

  1. 01

    Document prerequisites, migration steps, and recovery options for each supported starting version.

  2. 02

    Rehearse interruptions and retries in a test environment and expose progress, logs, and ownership of controls.

Where this applies — and where it may not

The comment describes scenarios and requirements; not every application needs an equally complex release system.

From the discussion

“a single `docker compose up` for deployment won't cut it.”

@rudasn · View source

Show HN: Distr – open-source distribution platform for on-prem deployments

@louis_w_gk · 117 points · 23 comments

Read the Hacker News thread

Source: OpenIndex Hacker News dataset (ODC-By). Original content belongs to its authors. Summaries, translations, and suggested steps are AI-assisted editorial work. Read the sources; individual outcomes are not guarantees.