Introducing Side-By-Side for Version 9

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Let’s be frank.  Migration is never easy.  Consider the challenges you face when migrating standalone desktop applications let alone platform based infrastructure that involving both repository, server, and desktop based components. 

In the past, we took a Big Bang (all or nothing) approach to migration.  However, times have changed as most of our customers now have 20 or more production business processes, and some have more than 100.  Feedback from these customers has been that regression testing these processes on a new platform was very time consuming.  Knowing these challenges, we have made it as easy as possible for our customers to migrate from version 7 to version 9.  The trick was to provide a way for customers to upgrade to Version 9, but to get there in a measured, iterative pace.  To this end, I’d like to introduce Side-By-Side support for Version 9.

The overall approach of side-by-side deployment looks something like this:

There are four great things about this approach.  First, it is very simple to setup and configure.  Second, you can immediately begin working on new processes in Version 9 without having to migrate existing process.  Third, customers can migrate existing processes at their own pace in their own timelines.  Finally, end users only have a single client to use (i.e. they won’t need to have a v7.6 URL and a v9 URL) so it easy for them to adapt. 

So, if you are a customer that has a large number of processes or want to start a new project Version 9 immediately without migrating your other processes, I recommend you consider this approach.  For more information about setting up your environment in Side-by-Side, see the Migration Guide shipped with V9 SR 1.