I've been working in IT for a long time. Longer than I care to admit, but not as long as others. Over the years, I have seen so many processes that appeared to be simple but turned out to be everything but. I'll admit there have been a few times I have looked at a client or manager and said something along the lines of, "Sure, I can knock that out in a few minutes!"
FIVE HOURS LATER.....
Things like that happened to me not because I'm some incompetent moron, but because even the very wise cannot see all possible ends.** When considering the vast array of the AC client base, there are literally tens of thousands of possible configurations that the clients may have any of which could sour an upgrade.
1. Different versions of Windows from XP all the way to Windows 8 all at different service pack levels.
2. Some domain networks some peer-to-peer.
3. All kinds of different anti-virus.
4. Different levels of maintenance on the computers. Some will be fully up-to-date others will be grossly up-to-date and everything in between.
5. You are upgrading from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2012. Those XP/2003 server machines will have to go so that may mean a full server upgrade in the process. I fully expect quite a few clients to be told their upgrade will have to be postponed until they can purchase a Windows 7/2008 R2 or better machine.
6. All kinds of different applications on the server machine that may interfere or be interfered with.
I could go on with that list for a very long time.
As for the video, of course it looks simple because no marketing person in their right mind is going to post a video of an actual upgrade that includes the possible problems that may arise. Think about it. If they did that then you would see the polar opposite of ClementB's post which would say something like this:
Today I received an email from AC advising me about the impending upgrade of my version to 6.5. I think we're now at 2 months from when it was first released. In the email was a link to watch videos on the process. I'm told I will be invited to upgrade in the next few weeks.
Having watched the videos, the process seems quite fraught with possible errors and problems and makes the processs appear to require a computer science graduate to accomplish. Why is AC instituting this overly complicated process? Why do I need to risk such downtime and possible loss of data? I personally find this quite silly and incompetent. I'm sure others have been similarly frustrated. What explanations have you received?
JamesNT
**MOVIE REFERENCE
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