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+---
+date: 2012-04-16
+title: A Learning Experience
+category: Opinions
+---
+
+How many times have you installed/updated a bit of software and read the
+line "Please take a back up" or something to that effect? 99 times out
+of a hundred, you will just continue and ignore it.
+
+Today I had a reminder of why it is import to do so. I did a routine
+plug-in upgrade on our Jira installation (Customware Salesforce
+connector for those who want to know). I have done this several times, I
+had tested it in our Dev installation I was 100% confident it would work
+as expected. However, I actually decided to take a backup anyway.
+
+I ran the upgrade in the production environment and re-indexed. Nothing
+out of the ordinary. 10% of the way into the index it fell over. Jira's
+database was gone! Fortunately I was able to restore from my backup and
+at worst a comment or two was lost, but that still caused significant
+downtime.
+
+I had done everything I could to make sure the upgrade would go
+smoothly, but it still did not. That is why software vendors always tell
+you to take a backup before even the smallest change -- DO IT!