Clone vs Update Sets

[Marek Zakroczym]

Hi,
We've performed our first clone from PROD to UAT (Test) instance.
It went ok, but I have one issue that I needed to address, that I do not like.
Update source was removed and copied from PROD. That gave me an idea that I might need to use Preserver on sys_update_set_source table + provide an exclusion for that table.
Also I would need to do the same for sys_remote_update_set table.

Now the question is, is that enough and according to best practices?
Idea of the clone is to clean-up any mess related to development, that includes some not properly deployed / backed out / invalid / etc update sets.
If I'm going to use preserver + exclusion, no clean-up will be done.

For our first clone, we didn't had preserver, so we needed to reconfigure the update source.
Out of a total of around 500 update sets, it pulled ~140 update sets, where ~120 were already in the system but with a different remote_sys_id entry in sys_remote_update_set.
I needed to disable ACL's for this table in order to modify it.
I then used background script to copy remote_sys_id from the newly pulled update sets to the "old" update sets (copied from PROD) and removing the duplicate.
Now we are back in the game and moving update sets across environments is OK.

For moving update sets we are using DEV to UAT and UAT to PROD concept, so any completed update set in UAT is pulled in PROD (Update source set to UAT).

Now my questions are:
1. Is this the best way to deploy update sets? Maybe there are better practices to do this, that will make sure everything is tidy in terms of update sets.

2. What would be the best approach to do the Clone to clean-up and avoid manual activities post-clone?
2a. What are the best practices with cloning to UAT? I presume nothing fancy, just almost a complete wipe, but how to address update source/update sets issue described above?
2b. What are the best practices with cloning to DEV? Considering similar issue with update sources / update sets
We haven't cloned to DEV yet, maybe that would change things?

3. How to clone to DEV now to make sure all environments update sets are aligned?

Kind regards
Marek

[Community Alums]

Hi @Marek Zakroczymski ,

This KB has all information on post clone activities

Post-Cloning Checklist

Mark my answer correct & Helpful, if Applicable.

Thanks,
Sandeep

[Marek Zakroczym]

Hi,

Thanks for a quick answer, unfortunately it doesn't answer my main questions, especially about update sets.

Hopefuly someone else can advise 🙂

Kind regards 

[suvro]

1. Is this the best way to deploy update sets? Maybe there are better practices to do this, that will make sure everything is tidy in terms of update sets. Ans: Yes

For rest you can check this out

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_video&sys_id=9f470535db989fc09c9ffb651f9619c4