Update Set protection during clone – Is XML backup still needed?

[kuuum_aaaya]

When cloning from Production to Development or Test environments before an upgrade, I have a question regarding update sets.

• I am planning to exclude and protect certain update sets (since Sys IDs will differ).

• If I mark them as protected, will they never be deleted during the clone?

• Or is it still necessary to take an XML export backup of these update sets beforehand?

I’d appreciate any best practices or experiences from the community on this topic.

[GlideFather]

Hi @kuuum_aaaya,

if you are worried about cloning to remove your update sets, you can create Excluders in the Cloning definition.

Please can you explain your motivation for the backup?

If you have 3 envs: DEV - TEST - PROD and you plan to clone it, you can start with cloning of TEST (all backup is moved to DEV), but nothing from test should be missing in DEV...

Then you can backup DEV to already cloned TEST (DEV in progress stuff) and then you can clone the DEV env and move the backed up stuff back to DEV.

Or you can schedule your cloning after all your stuff from DEV is moved to TEST and to PROD.

Let me know what's your exact situation. 

PS: to make the backup, create a parent update set, move all the sets in it and complete the parent (it will complete all the children) and then you can export it in one file instead of one by one...

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@kuuum_aaaya 

worth reading

ServiceNow Cloning preparations and best practices Article/ Blog 

Clone FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions 

Clone Basics 

If my response helped please mark it correct and close the thread so that it benefits future readers.

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @kuuum_aaaya 

Worth reading

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0715621