To keep operating systems supported and secure we regularly need to upgrade operating systems. A collaborative effort from several departments has now improved the speed of this process. Image To keep operating systems supported and secure, regular updates need to be applied to the several hundred servers maintained by the Applications Directorate. This was formerly done by following a time and resource hungry process known as a ‘build and migrate strategy.’ The Development Technology team have since researched and implemented an improved process. Now, using an in-place upgrade to update existing systems, the team no longer have to change the underlying system configuration or data. This new approach requires less effort from the team and reduces system downtime. Senior Database and Systems Administrator Peter Jackson, was recently able to quickly upgrade the existing enterprise operating system from CentOS 7 to newer Rocky Linux 8, by following the new process. With support from the ITI team, this process has now been implemented into the strategy for migrating and upgrading most Linux servers and is expected to save many hours of time for staff involved. Publication date 15 Mar, 2023
