Updating an environment

When a newer PolicyArc platform version is available, the dashboard shows an Update available badge on the environment. Updating moves that environment's Authorization Server to the new version in place. The tenant database is kept, so your clients, policy rules, policy data and managed resources stay as they were.

What happens

1. Backup — before anything changes, we snapshot the environment's tenant database.
2. Redeploy — the Authorization Server is restarted on the new version. Database migrations run automatically on startup.
3. Health check — the environment is verified healthy on the new version before the update is considered complete.

What an update does not refresh

The update replaces the Authorization Server's image and runs database migrations. It does not rewrite the policy rules or resources stored in the environment.

• Bundled policy rules. The Authorization Server writes its bundled rules only into an empty rules table, so an updated environment keeps the bundled rules it started with. A rule that the new version changes or adds takes effect only when you deploy it. See Deploy and roll back policy, and Update the bundled policy rules for how to find the rules that differ.
• Connector tools. A resource you connected keeps the routes and tools it was created with. To pick up a connector's new tools, follow Keep connector tools current.

Downtime

Updating requires a restart, so expect a short outage — typically under a minute — while the Authorization Server redeploys and runs its database migrations.

Automatic rollback

If the new version fails to come up healthy, the update rolls back automatically: the Authorization Server is reverted to its previous version and the database is restored from the pre-update backup, so the environment returns to exactly its prior state. You are never left on a half-applied update.

While it rolls back, the environment is briefly offline (typically a few minutes): the Authorization Server is stopped so its database can be restored safely, then started again on the previous version.

If the rollback cannot complete — for example, the database stays unreachable — the environment is left stopped with its pre-update backup kept, and shows an error. Recover finishes the rollback from that backup. Updates, starts and restarts are refused until it has.

Before you update

• The environment must be running — start a stopped environment first.
• Any in-flight operation (restart or recover) must finish before an update can start.