Copying environments of different types

Copy an Environment:

1.  We can create an environment that is a copy of an existing environment, such as a sandbox that is based on production for troubleshooting.

2.  Creating production environment that is based on a sandbox, for example. When you create an environment as a copy of another environment, the new environment is created on the same application version as the environment that you are copying. 

Note: The new environment will contain all per-tenant extensions and AppSource extensions that are installed and published in the original environment that is being copied.

To copy an environment

1.     Select Environments, then select the environment that you want to copy.

2.     On the Environment Details page, choose the Copy action.

3.     In the Copy environment pane, specify the type of environment that you want to create based on the current environment.

4.     Specify a name for the new environment.

5.     Choose the Create action.

At the different stages of implementation, testing, support, and maintenance of a Business Central tenant, Business Central online now provides admins with more flexibility when they work with multiple environments.

In earlier versions, you could copy a production environment to a sandbox environment in the Business Central admin centre.

This release wave adds support for copying the environments within and across different environment types as shown in this list:

·        Sandbox to sandbox

·        Sandbox to production

·        Production to production

a.     Sandbox to Sandbox: 

          

 

 

     

b.     Sandbox to Production:

 

 

C. Production to Production

       Similarly, we can copy Production to Production

BC 16 update is ready for Business Central – are you?

Microsoft rolling notifications that Microsoft is ready to update tenants to BC 16 (wave 1 2020) and are we ready?

1.    Didn’t you get notifications?

Setup notification recipients in the Admin Center

How can I set that?

Follow the below link

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/administration/tenant-admin-center-notifications

Result should look like below

2.   How can we check whether we are ready?

Check the compatibility of PTEs with BC 16

How can we check?

One way is: We already have 16 version Preview available in Admin center so we can create a sandbox environment with 16 preview version and check our extensions compatibility and also test the new functionality and PTE functionality.

Another way is: create a container using below docker image which will give 16 version already.

     mcr.microsoft.com/businesscentral/sandbox:us

3.    What we have to do after we are ready for update to BC 16?

Microsoft notification email comes with lot of information.

Mainly, header part contains important dates

Example:

Updates will automatically start:    On or after 4/30/2020 (UTC)

First day to apply update:                4/16/2020 (UTC)

Last day to apply update:                6/15/2020 (UTC)

Scheduled time:                                Between 12:00:00 AM and 11:59:59 PM (UTC)

Bottom part contains versions:

Example:

Your service identifier (Tenant):      M365B085983-sandbox Environment:                                      Sandbox Version before update:                      15.4.41023.41345 Version after update:                         16.0.11240.11946

NOTE: Now the good news is: we have 60 days to select out update. Usually it was 30 days.

Microsoft gave us 14 days to set the update date:

From 04/16 to 04/29

If we did not set the update before 04/29 then Microsoft will update on or after 04/30 (may not be all on same day)

How can I set update date?

If we go to Admin center and the environment then we will see whether “update scheduling available”

If yes then it will show update will start on or after date: in this case 04/30 as I didn’t set update date yet.

On top, click on update and then schedule update

Here, we can select the version and date that we want to update our environment

I prefer to update Sandbox environments which is a copy of production first and test and then plan for Production later.

On top, click on update and then schedule window

We can also set update window: which means this is the time on the day the updates to be rolled out.

Note: make sure that your environments are on 15.4 to update to BC 16.

If your environment is below 15.4 then Microsoft will not schedule update to BC 16.

Stay Home and Stay Safe and enjoy the update.