"What new technology does is create new opportunities to do a job that customers want done."
-Tim O'Reilly
Upgrading to the latest version of ServiceNow provides useful new features. One challenge, however, is when to schedule the upgrade. When you do schedule the upgrade, you want to monitor the process and ensure that it starts on time. Learning a little bit about the scheduled jobs that control upgrades and the available monitoring tools can help you take control of upgrades.
Scheduled jobs used for upgrades
There are two critical scheduled jobs that execute the upgrade process.
| Scheduled Job | Description |
|---|---|
| Upgrade | Runs every 60 minutes to check if the instance is associated with a new .war file. (A new .war file is associated with an instance when you submit an upgrade request.) |
| Check Upgrade Script | Looks for a new .war file when a node is restarted. If a new file is found, it begins updating the database. |
Keep in mind that the Upgrade scheduled job runs every 60 minutes, but not necessarily at the top of the hour. For example, the scheduled job could run at 10 minutes past the hour or 15 minutes before the hour.
To determine when the Upgrade scheduled runs on your instance:
- Navigate to System Scheduler > Scheduled Jobs > Scheduled Jobs.
- Find the Upgrade scheduled job.
- View the Next action column to determine when the job next runs. For example, if the next action is 10:35:20, the scheduled job runs at 35 minutes and 20 seconds past the hour, every hour.
Scheduling an upgrade strategically
Now that you know when the Upgrade scheduled job runs on your instance, request an upgrade and set the upgrade time carefully. On the Instance Upgrade Request form, set the upgrade to start 10-15 minutes before the Upgrade scheduled job runs. That 10-15 time lag enables the upgrade request to update HI before the Upgrade scheduled job runs. In the example below, the upgrade is set at 10:20:20, which is 15 minutes before the upgrade time of 10:35:20 we determined above.
If you don't determine when the Upgrade scheduled job runs on your machine and you set an upgrade time, your upgrade could be delayed. For example, say that the Upgrade scheduled job runs on your instance at 5 minutes before the top of the hour. You schedule an upgrade for 1:00am. At 1:30am, you are still monitoring and waiting for the upgrade to start. However, the upgrade will not begin until 1:55am, nearly an hour after the scheduled time you specified.
Monitoring an upgrade
ctomasi and our ServiceNow video team put together a short video about monitoring upgrades during the upgrade process using the Check Upgrade Script scheduled job and the Upgrade Log.
In addition to monitoring the upgrade while it is taking place, you can also check if an upgrade completed using one or both of the following methods:
- navigate to System Diagnostics > Upgrade History and search for the most recent upgrade
- navigate to System Definition > System Upgrade and view the listed information
ServiceNow offers more information about scheduling and monitoring upgrades.
In the product documentation:
Upgrades and the Release Cycle
In the community:
When upgrading your instance leaves you scratching your head
