Differences between a rolling upgrade and a full upgrade

Guidewire provides two different ways to modify the configuration of an application server in a PolicyCenter production cluster:

Each of these upgrade types has associated advantages and disadvantages. You use each upgrade type in different circumstances.

Full application and database upgrade

A full application upgrade has the following functionality:

Supports either a single or multiple server configuration and upgrade.
Supports making significant changes to both the PolicyCenter application and database.
Requires that you stop the entire PolicyCenter production installation for a period of time.
Requires a significant amount of testing before and after complex changes.

It is possible to start a full upgrade from any server instance in the PolicyCenter cluster, from the Server Tools Upgrade and Versions screen.

A rolling upgrade of the individual server members in the cluster has the following functionality:

Supports configuration deployment to multiple server instances.
Successively targets a single member of a production cluster for configuration deployment while leaving the remaining cluster members available for the processing of PolicyCenter operations.
Supports a limited set of configuration changes.
Requires that the new target configuration be compatible with the existing source configuration.
Supports a command-line utility that checks the compatibility of the source and target configurations before deployment.
Supports configuration deployment management and tracking from within PolicyCenter.

It is possible to start a rolling upgrade from any server instance in the PolicyCenter cluster, from the Server Tools Upgrade and Versions screen.