General Upgrade Information
===========================

Upgrade Methods
---------------

There are two main ways to upgrade ArangoDB:

- _In-Place_ upgrade: this is a binary upgrade.
- _Logical_ upgrade: when the data is exported from the old ArangoDB version,
   using [_arangodump_ ](..\..\Programs\Arangodump\README.md) and then restored in
   the new ArangoDB version using [_arangorestore_ ](..\..\Programs\Arangorestore\README.md).
   Depending on the size of your database, this strategy can be more time consuming,
   but needed in some circumstances.

Before the Upgrade
------------------

Before upgrading, it is suggested to:

- Check the [CHANGELOG](../../ReleaseNotes/README.md#changelogs) and the
  [list of incompatible changes](../../ReleaseNotes/README.md#incompatible-changes)
  for API or other changes in the new version of ArangoDB and make sure your applications
  can deal with them.
- As an extra precaution, you might want to take a backup, and also copy the entire
  "old" data directory to a safe place (after stopping the ArangoDB Server running
  on it). The backup from the "old" version is required in case a downgrade will be needed. 

Upgrade Paths
-------------

- It is always possible to upgrade between hot-fixes of the same GA release, i.e
  from X.Y.w to X.Y.z, where z>w.
  - Examples: 
    - Upgrading from 3.4.0 to 3.4.1 or (directly to) 3.4.2 is supported.
    - Upgrading from 3.3.7 to 3.3.8 or (directly to) 3.3.11 is supported.
    - Upgrading from 3.2.12 to 3.2.13 or (directly to) 3.2.15 is supported.
- It possible to upgrade between two different consecutive GA releases, but it is
  not officially supported to upgrade if the two GA releases are not consecutive
  (in this case, you first have to upgrade to all intermediate releases).
  - Examples:
    - Upgrading from 3.3 to 3.4 is supported.
    - Upgrading from 3.2 to 3.3 is supported.
    - Upgrading from 3.2 to 3.4 directly is not officially supported: the officially
      supported upgrade path in this case is 3.2 to 3.3, and then 3.3 to 3.4.	  
  - **Important:** before upgrading between two consecutive GA releases it is recommended
    to first upgrade the previous GA release to its latest hot-fix.
    - Examples: 
      - To upgrade from 3.2 to 3.3, first upgrade your 3.2 installation to 3.2.latest.
      - To upgrade from 3.3 to 3.4, first upgrade your 3.3 installation to 3.3.latest.
	  
### Additional Notes Regarding Rolling Upgrades

In addition to the paragraph above, rolling upgrades via the tool _Starter_ are supported,
as documented in the _Section_ [Upgrading Starter Deployments](../Starter/README.md),
with the following limitations:

- Rolling upgrades between 3.2 and 3.3 are not supported before 3.2.15 and 3.3.8.