Upgrading from previous Board 12 Releases

Since the Board 14.1 release is fully back-compatible with previous Board 12 (2021, 2022, and 2023) versions, the upgrade process won't require any special preparation: every Data model running in previous Board 12 (2021, 2022, and 2023) releases environments will work seamlessly after you upgrade your solution. 

Steps for upgrading to Board 14 release 

Cloud customers 

For Cloud environments, the upgrade process can be initiated by raising a ticket through the Board Support Portal. The ticket must contain your Platform name (e.g. customer1-s1.board.com). The Board Cloud Operations team will then handle your request. 

Once the upgrade is confirmed by the Board Cloud Operations team, you'll be ready to actively use your new Board 14 release environments. 

On-premises customers 

1. Uninstall your current version of Board

2. Install Board 14.1 You can download the necessary installer files from the download page.

After these steps are completed, you are ready to actively use your new Board 14 environments. 

Between Board 12.0 (2021 Spring release) and Board 12.6 (2023 Summer release), there have been various changes which might be relevant for your application and Data model upgrade. Please refer to the specific release notes section in each 12.X version to review if any of the listed changes are relevant for your upgrade.   

Detailed changes introduced 

Board 14.1 does not introduce any critical changes compared to the Board 12.x versions, so no specific action is required to complete the upgrade. The only changes to be aware of are the following: 

• Data model - Dynamic Saving Policy: the new Dynamic Engine released with Board 14.1 will simplify and automatically manage what data is kept in memory rather than on disk. This will ensure optimal resource usage, data model scalability, and better responsiveness under high concurrency usage. To learn more, read about the Dynamic Engine. For this reason, the “dynamic” saving policy is now the only saving policy configuration available in Board 14.1. If your environment uses one of the previously existing policies, it will automatically change to the dynamic one during the upgrade (the existing configuration will be ignored). No action is required to manage this change. 

• Procedure step - Save Data model to disk: the function executed via this Procedure step will now be directly managed by the Dynamic Engine. Therefore, if executed, this step will not perform any action. In complex environments or Data models, this step was typically used to save all pending changes to disk before performing backup actions. This type of backup architecture is no longer necessary and can be simplified by simply leveraging the backup Procedure step.  

  For on-premises customers, in order to benefit from the new backup/restore performance, the shadow copy mechanism (in Windows features) should be enabled. If it is not active, Board will execute the old backup/restore mechanism.  

• Procedure step – Backup/Restore Data model: thanks to the Dynamic Engine, the execution of backup/restore Data models has been completely optimized, by making these actions faster and more suitable even for complex environments and for large data models (as already explained for the Save Data model to disk action step).

• Data model - InRam Flag for Cubes: this feature has now been deprecated. Existing setups other than the default ones are ignored after the upgrade. No action is required to manage this change. 

• Data model – Fast track section: this feature has been deprecated. For any questions pertaining to this item or the product roadmap, please refer to the Product Management Team.

• Cognitive Space area: this feature has been deprecated. For any questions pertaining to this item or the product roadmap, please refer to the Product Management Team.

• File upload utility: this feature has been deprecated. For any questions pertaining to this item or the product roadmap, please refer to the Product Management Team.

For on-premises customers only 

• HTTP protocol is no longer supported: to increase the security of our applications, it is now mandatory to use a certificate (HTTPS protocols) to access the Web Board platform. The only exception is for installations that use “localhost” access. 

• Web API Server folder structure has now changed (relevant for IIS deployments): the new framework used for our new User Interface requires a different web server folder structure which will therefore affect the on-premises installation of Board deployed via IIS. Please refer to the following article to learn more about the new IIS deployment steps for Board 14 and any relevant differences with the previous structure.