In term of public cloud you don’t have to be worry about upgrading, because service that you are subscribed will upgrade automatically and there are few things that you might need to do such as update some plugin or your browser. In term of private cloud, upgrade is important issue and it required planning. Upgrade to newer version of product brings you more security, reliability and you could take advantage of new features. For example consider upgrade all of your Windows Client Operating System from Windows XP or Windows Vista to Windows 7 or Windows Server Operating System from Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 R2. You could get advantage of features such as branch catch and direct access that are not available in older version and you could gain advantage of them by doing upgrade. In future, you might consider upgrading your Operating Systems to Windows 8.

In term of private cloud, upgrade is not only about operating system, but also it is about several applications such as System Center Products, Anti-Malware, Business Applications and many more. Performing upgrade could affect production. For example consider you are upgrading Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 R2, in this case endpoints that are connected to the server that is being upgrade might face some difficulty and if you redirect them to another server, then performance of that server might affected since too many people are using it. In term of upgrade it is recommended to have some servers ready which are run as standalone and when you are performing upgrade, connect all affected endpoint to that server until upgrade complete and reconnect them to the previous server once upgrade complete.

Also make sure to run assessment and check for all possible issues that might happen during upgrade. Such as power failure, network disconnection, unknown errors. Before perform any upgrade, run your upgrade scenario in test environment and try running test cases for your core production software. For example, if your company developing an application , try run that application in new operating system that you want to upgrade and with new software that you are upgrading and record down all errors (if any). The following are some of important factors that you should consider when you upgrade your cloud:

1) Perform test cases and discover possible issues after upgrade (e.g. compatibility issues, errors, performance issue, etc.)

2) Consider the cost in long term, doing upgrade is costly (license, new hardware, etc.) for a short period of time but you will get a long term benefit for an upgrade.

3) Microsoft Assessment Planning Toolkit could give idea about how to get started, you could use System Center Configuration Manager to view your inventory and create upgrade test cases base on that.

4) Run special monitoring task before, during and after upgrade. You could create upgrade group in Operation Manager and monitor how these upgrade task being process.

5) You might not have enough servers or PCs to run all test case, but you could virtualize them using Hyper-V and monitor them using Virtual Machine Manager.

6) Do a monitoring base on group of users. For example, finance team might use Microsoft Office and some other financial software and Developer might use Visual Studio. Check to see how does your upgrade effect on all of these products in each group.

Upgrading environment or private cloud is time consuming and costly, but with a proper assessment and planning and testing you could upgrade your cloud. By doing this, you will take advantage of new features and improve overall production in your organization.