TMCnews Featured Article
April 29, 2010
New Version Updating Process Available with Billing Co.'s PortaSwitch MR21
By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor
Billing software provider PortaOne (News - Alert) offers the PortaSwitch Maintenance Release 21, or "MR21," which utilizes an innovative system of maintaining and modifying software code on each server. With this process, service providers can properly address all potential upgrade issues while also migrating quickly to a new maintenance release and safely rollback to exactly the same version of the software used prior to the update if necessary.
The dual software version management system within the MR21 eliminates the risk of incompatibility between the updated components and dangerous situations when the update fails and the result is a system experiencing the shut down of normally operable software to where it cannot be used.
There are three separate partitions within the disk subsystem, including one partition that stores the actual application data and two other partitions equal in size that have the ability to contain the full set of the software code necessary to operate the server. This set includes the operating system, third-party libraries and modules and the actual code for a specific application.
Within the MR21, a configuration agent updates the local files based on the configuration of the system stored in the configuration server. A specific time is set for the new partition to automatically mark the server as active, restarting the server using the new version of the code.
In this process, potential downtime is minimal and nothing is changed in the "old" partition. If a rollback is required, it is only necessary to reboot from that partition and the server is established as its old, "stable" release.
In the event of an update to an even newer release, the partition is wiped clean, allowing for the new version of the code to be loaded into the recently emptied location. At that point, the previously described process repeats itself. The same method is necessary to update to a new maintenance release or to a newer software build within the current release.
To make decisions about how the service should be provided, PortaSwitch relies on a large set of previously accumulated data. Any data that was accumulated by the old software release is now available to the new release after the upgrade.
This process involves changing the data files, database structures and the data to accommodate the new release. The update process includes non-blocking data modifications after installation but before it becomes active; and blocking data modifications during off-peak periods.
With the design of this process, all data modifications can be performed while the system still operates with the current release. In that time, the older version of the release operates with the newer version of the data. PortaOne development and testing focuses on making this possible, although this interoperability is only guaranteed for the adjoining releases.
In other PortaOne news, the company took advantage of the excitement at ITEXPO East 2010 in Miami to announce that Apollo Communications, a European VoIP telecom provider, has selected the PortaOne PortaBilling Oracularius to power its new Junex VoIP PBX (News - Alert) product.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Kelly McGuire
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