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I have SharePoint 2013 Standard Edition installed in our servers 1 App, 1 WFE, 1 Workflow Server. Very soon we are moving on to a plan to upgrade the farm with Sp1 upgrade. Before doing that i need to come up with the plan. I have managed to locate the installation files and have went through all the fixes and bugs included on this update, set up a communication plans, Test Cases after the upgrade. I am going to first install this update onto the Dev server,then QA and finally to Prod. As we all know with every upgrade there is a risk of malfunctioning or unexpected error, therefore i need to come up with the Roll back Plan in such case. Does Sp1 has some sort of Roll back Plan to protect my users and farm against possible malfunctioning.

Aside from that i would really appreciate your experiences and lesson learnt during the upgrade.

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Before upgrading to SP1 in production, you should backup your farm. Backup each of the SQL databases and backup each server in the farm.

There isn't a safe "undo" option for removing service packs except for restoring backups, etc.

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  • Yes i am going to attempt the upgrade in Dev server first before going into the PROD and yes all of our servers are backed up very frequently and the backup will be taken prior to upgrade. Is there anything else aside from that you can suggest.
    – allegro octopus
    Jul 28, 2014 at 20:36
  • Having a backup is the most important part. Other than that, there isn't much else to do.
    – John Chapman
    Jul 28, 2014 at 20:38
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Unfortunately there is no clean/ easy way to uninstall of SP, Because Services packs not only SharePoint Server but also upgrade the Database Schema.

If there is any kind of corruption then you need to rebuild the whole farm.

Now I am going to Share some lesson learnt from my experience.

  • Create a List of test Cases ( depending upon the functionality /usage of SP in your organization Plus basic functionality of SP)
  • Move( Restore / copy) some key site collection to Dev and QA
  • Apply the SP in Dev
  • Perform full testing in dev and make sure everything work
  • Now apply the same thing in QA/ test farm
  • Test, Test and Test For Production
  • Set the DownTime for your Farm
  • Take the Full Backup of All Content Databases and including the Services Application
  • Backup / Make a Copy of all Customization of farm
  • Note down all the AAM & web.config changes
  • If possible perform full SharePoint farm Backup( not necessary)
  • Now Apply the SP, Run Config wizard, Make sure all database upgraded and version upgraded too.
  • test you farm, Hope fully all set.

Hope this help you.

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