Software updates to your aACE server must be implemented manually. We recommend that you schedule time to manually implement software updates every two to three months.
When aACE was first installed, the system admin should have disabled automatic software updates on the server in order to prevent disruptions to the performance of your aACE solution. If automatic updates are still active, disable them.
Potential Disruptions from Automatic Updates
We recommend that you disable anything non-essential that could, without human supervision, take resources away from the aACE Server. Because the aACE Server is not constantly monitored, small issues that arise during a software update may snowball into larger problems.
Disruptions During the Day
If the software automatically schedules an update to happen during the day, bandwidth will be taken from your network in order to download the applicable update files. This may impact general Internet connectivity, resulting in slower-than-normal functionality when aACE reaches out to external web services (e.g. credit card processing).
In addition, if the update is set up to automatically restart the server, this may result in a “hard crash” and could corrupt your data.
Disruptions During the Night
Even if updates are scheduled to take place at night, the “hard crash” scenario mentioned above is still possible. Moreover, any issues during the update that require human intervention will go unnoticed for a time. During this time, your aACE solution will be performing under less-than-optimal conditions.
Installing Updates Manually
Manual updates should be done with close supervision from start to finish.
- Turn off the FileMaker Server, following the instructions up through Step #4.
- Download the update files and install them.
- Restart the machine. Once the machine has finished restarting, FileMaker Server should automatically start up with all hosted files back online.
- Login to the FileMaker Server Admin Console again.
- Navigate to the Activity tab and confirm that all files have a Status of Normal.
- Login to aACE to confirm users will have no problems when they arrive.