Update Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Updating Alation to the latest available release provides you with access to new features, improved existing functionality, and enhanced performance. When a new update for customer-managed deployments becomes available, Alation sends email notifications to the Alation Admins who have their email addresses registered on the Alation Customer Portal.

Note

Archived Upgrade Guides

Please note that upgrade guides for versions 2023.3 and older have been moved to our internal archives. If you require upgrade documentation for these specific versions, they remain available on demand.

To request a copy of an older guide, contact Alation Support, who will retrieve the appropriate documentation for you.

Update Process Overview

You can update Alation when a new build is released. It’s recommended to update to the latest available patch version of a release.

Updating to a newer version involves the following steps:

Phase 1: Preparation & Validation

  • Ensure you have a valid, recent backup. Review the Update Safety Best Practice before proceeding.

    Note

    To follow an even safer update scenario than restoring from an Alation backup, you can create a complete system snapshot or image before installing the update if your infrastructure allows for the creation of a system image. Make sure that the snapshot or image restore process is tested at least once on a test server. After a successful update, you can delete this image.

  • Confirm your backups are functional by performing a test restoration in a dev environment. For detailed procedures on backing up and restoring, see Back Up and Restore.

Phase 2: Planning and Testing

  • Locate the update instructions specific to your target version and architecture (standalone or High Availability).

  • Perform the update on your dev environment first.

  • Have key stakeholders verify functionality and data integrity on the updated dev environment.

Phase 3: Production Execution

  • Document a step-by-step update plan tailored to your production environment, including rollback procedures.

    Important

    Updating Alation causes downtime. Make sure to communicate the update schedule to your user community according to your organization’s policy.

  • Execute the update on the production instance during your scheduled maintenance window.

Find Out Your Current Version

To find out your current version of Alation, click the Help icon (question mark) on the main toolbar and then click About this Instance to open the instance information page.

About this Instance

../../_images/Update_Find_Your_Version.png

Alternatively, to find out the version you are currently using, run the following command outside of the Alation shell on the Alation host:

update-alternatives --display alation

The output lists all Alation versions installed on the host. The version that is currently active is shown after link currently points to. The output you will see will be similar to the following:

[alation.admin@alation-instance ~]$ update-alternatives --display alation
alation - status is manual.
link currently points to /opt/alation/alation-5.5.0.35723
/opt/alation/alation-5.5.0.35560 - priority 35560
/opt/alation/alation-5.5.0.33922 - priority 33922
/opt/alation/alation-5.5.0.35723 - priority 35723
current ‘best’ version is /opt/alation/alation-5.5.0.35723.
[alation.admin@alation-instance ~]$