Performing Frends version update

Frends gets regular updates which might contain new features or bug fixes. Here's a guide to how to get those updates installed.

Requirements

For a full Cloud deployment of Frends, using only PaaS Agents, no requirements - Frends Support team will handle the whole update process for you. Simply contact the team or your Service Manager to schedule an update for your Frends Tenant.

In order to perform version update for self-hosted Agents, you should have administrator role in the Frends Tenant, as well as admininstrator access to the servers hosting your Agents, or have help from personnel who do have these permissions.

Performing Frends Update

A Frends version update is done in two parts. First the Control Panel will be updated, and then the Agents.

You can find information about different Frends versions from the release notes. You can check your current Frends version from the profile menu in the Control Panel, in the top right corner.

Frends version update is done by and with the Frends Support team. In order to have your Frends Tenant updated, please contact the Frends Support team or your Service Manager to get an update scheduled for you.

Updating the Control Panel

To start with the update process, your Control Panel will be updated first.

The Control Panel will not be accessible during the update, meaning any Process development or management of the Tenant cannot be performed while the update is ongoing. Processes will continue running on the Agents normally as there is no direct connection to the Control Panel from the Agents after the Processes have been activated. Processes using a Manual Trigger cannot be executed due to not having access to Control Panel.

The update will take about 10 to 15 minutes for the Control Panel.

Updating the Agents

After the Control Panel has been updated, the Agents should be updated next.

Agents will continue running Processes even though their version is older than the Control Panel's version, but you cannot deploy new Processes or new versions of Processes to Agent Groups that have Agents using an older version.

The Agent update is done one Agent at a time. The update will proceed so that least mission critical Agents are updated first, i.e. Agents in the Development and Test Environments, before proceeding to Production. When an Agent is being updated the Processes on that Agent cannot be executed, meaning there will be some downtime unless High Availability configuration has been enabled for the Agent Group. In HA configuration, other Agents in the same Agent Group will continue executions while one of the Agents is being updated.

Updating Frends Cloud Agents

If the Agent is a PaaS Agent, the Frends Support team will update the Agent. You simply need to schedule a suitable time for performing the update, and let our experts handle the rest.

Updating self-hosted Agents

If the Agent is a Self Service Agent running on your own infrastructure, your server or infrastructure administrators will need to perform the Agent update. It's also possible to allow Frends Support team perform the update for you, provided they are given access to the Agent machines.

To perform the update by yourself, download new Agent installer from the Environments management view under Administration > Environments, by selecting the Agent Group being updated and then downloading the installer for the Agent being updated.

Before initiating the install, it is advised to pause the Agent Service first to avoid triggering any new Process Instances during the update. You should also check the Frends Control Panel that any Processes are finished before running the installer, since running the installer while Processes are running will terminate them.

After all Processes have finished you can safely stop the Agent service and perform the update. Stopping the service before Processes have finished will also terminate them. With the Agent Service stopped, simply run the downloaded installer to update the Agent to newer version.

After the installation has finished you should see that the Agent version is the same as the Control Panel version from the Environments View.

To confirm that everything proceeded as expected and no issues occurred, you should also monitor the Processes in the affected Agent Groups to ensure that they work as expected after the update.

Once Agent has been confirmed to be running smoothly, you can continue to update the rest of your Agents.