What to fill on the "Backup plan" field on the Change request form as part of Upgrade?

[Suggy]

We are upgrading to San Diego. We have been asked to create a CHG record for the same and need to fill the planning section.

Question - What to fill in the backout plan field? One of the question asked during the CAB was, what if the upgrade failed in between the upgrade process? (does it happen like that?) 

[ServiceNowSteve · Accepted solution]

CAB usually needs this to comply with regulations and best internal practices.

Your backout plan for any upgrade should be to revert to the previously working version from a backup taken by ServiceNow.

Obviously you can word it how you'd want but it's what I would put.

Edit: To answer your question directly, a backup CAN fail but it's not likely. Each instance consists of multiple nodes, I believe they upgrade them separately so people can still work even during an upgrade.

[Dipu Joy]

This KB will have answers to your query on ways in case of an unforeseen issue post upgrade 

14. Can I roll back/Downgrade an upgrade?

https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0678054#q14

[Yong Zeng Lee]

In accordance with the information provided in the KB, it says that:
"Unfortunately, there is NO option to run a rollback if the upgrade was to a different family. Only Patch upgrades can be rolled back."

How do we prepare for a back-out plan for a PROD instance Family Upgrade? if Roll-back is not available?

[Dipu Joy]

Hello Yong,

There are no defined post-recovery steps for this as every instance is different in terms of data and customized configuration. We can only do the diligence to test the upgrade in terms of functionality on a full replica of the PROD instance, initiate a full functionality test, rectify it,/apply a workaround by working with Customer support so you have it covered before the PROD upgrade.

In case of any unforeseen issues; fix forward from there, the approach and is described in detail on this section of the same KB

9. What are my options to recover my data in case of Data corruption after an upgrade?

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Dipu Joy