SharePoint updates make our user experience more and more sleek, while every SharePoint update is a Pandora’s box. Here are some tips to be prepared for the calamities:
Plan it out
No matter what method you choose, you’re bound to have down-time in one form or another. Whether it’s a full farm outage or a Read-Only state for High-Availability, you’ll need to communicate with your team or your entire organization to schedule the task at a time which will have the least impact for users. Microsoft proposes several methods to install a software update for SharePoint Server.
Set it up
Basically, there are two parts to updating SharePoint: Installation and Upgrade. The first part consists of downloading the appropriate update on each SharePoint server and then installing it on each one. This part can be done simultaneously. SharePoint Updates can include the latest Security Updates, Hotfixes, etc. But SharePoint’s Security Updates can also be downloaded and installed through the Windows Server Update Service (WSUS).
Tip: One practice is to install the Cumulative Updates (CU’s) for SharePoint with a month buffer. So, if the February CU was just released, install January’s instead – Technically, you’ll always be a month behind, but that can save you a lot of heartache from being on the HotFix “frontline”. If you choose this route, make sure to keep up with Security Updates through WSUS as they often contain protection against the latest threats and zero-day attacks targeted at SharePoint and related products.
Back it up
Now, this is outside the scope of my main purpose here but, suffice it to say, you should always have a current backup of your farm. (source)
UpSafe Office 365 backup is a service that will not only keep your most valuable SharePoint data backed up in a secure cloud storage, but also apply the same standards of security to your mail, drive, contacts and calendar.
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