Why Regular Upgrades Are Non-Negotiable in Modern DevOps
Introduction
In DevOps, upgrades are rarely exciting.
- They don’t ship new features (most of the time).
- They don’t impress clients.
- They don’t always get leadership applause.
And yet, over the years at To The New, one thing has become very clear to us: DevOps teams that do upgrades regularly move faster, stay safer, and break less. Teams that don’t eventually pay for it usually do so during an incident, a security audit, or a rushed migration.
Why Regular Upgrades Are Non-Negotiable in Modern DevOps
This blog isn’t about “upgrading for the sake of upgrading”.It’s more about why regular, planned upgrades are a core DevOps responsibility, not an optional cleanup task.
The Silent Risk of “We’ll Upgrade Later”
Almost every legacy issue starts with good intentions:
- “The current Jenkins version is working fine.”
- “Java upgrade can wait, let’s focus on delivering new features.”
- “We’ll upgrade MySQL after this release.”
- “OpenSearch upgrade feels risky right now.”
Fast forward a year. Now:
- Jenkins plugins are incompatible
- Java is EOL.
- Security vulnerabilities are piling up
- Vendor documentation no longer matches your setup.
- The upgrade window is much larger and riskier.
Across various client projects at To The New, we’ve seen that delayed upgrades don’t reduce risk; they concentrate it.
Jenkins: The Backbone That Must Stay Healthy
Jenkins is still the heart of many CI/CD systems. But Jenkins evolves fast:
- Core upgrades
- Plugin API changes
- Java version dependencies
- Security patches are released almost every month.
What happens when Jenkins isn’t upgraded regularly?
- Plugins stop working together.
- Pipeline syntax becomes outdated.
- Security advisories stack up.
- Simple changes start breaking builds.
- Teams end up afraid to touch Jenkins.
Regular Jenkins upgrades – planned, tested, and documented turn it back into what it should be: Boring, stable, and predictable. And in DevOps, boring is good.
Application Runtimes: Java, Python, and Libraries
Applications age faster than infrastructure. Java and Python ecosystems move quickly:
- New LTS releases
- Deprecated APIs
- Performance improvements
- Security fixes
Running old Java or Python versions creates hidden problems:
- New libraries don’t support old runtimes
- Security fixes are unavailable.
- Performance tuning becomes harder.
- Hiring and onboarding become painful.
The same applies to application libraries. If dependency upgrades are skipped for too long:
- Version jumps become massive
- Testing effort multiplies
- Rollbacks become risky
At To The New, we encourage clients to treat dependency upgrades as routine maintenance, not major projects.
Databases: Stability Depends on Staying Current
Databases are often the most “DO NOT TOUCH” part of the system. Whether it’s MySQL, Aerospike, or any other data store, upgrades are critical because:
- Replication bugs get fixed
- Performance improves
- Backup and recovery mechanisms are mature.
- Known data corruption issues are resolved.
Skipping database upgrades doesn’t just increase risk. It locks you into old operational patterns that are hard to modernize later.
Observability Tools: When Visibility Goes Dark
Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Icinga, Nagios, and OpenSearch are meant to give clarity during incidents. But outdated observability stacks often do the opposite:
- Metrics formats change
- Dashboards break
- Alerting becomes noisy or unreliable
- Storage costs silently increase
We’ve seen teams discover during an outage that:
- Alerts didn’t fire
- Dashboards were inaccurate
- Logs were missing a critical field
- Regular upgrades keep observability tools aligned with modern workloads and prevent blind spots.
Artifact & Dependency Systems: Nexus and Beyond
Tools like Nexus Repository Manager sit quietly in the background. Until they don’t. Older versions can suffer from:
- Storage inefficiencies
- Security vulnerabilities
- Slower artifact resolution
- Limited support for new package formats
Upgrading these tools regularly ensures:
- Faster builds
- Better security posture
- Cleaner dependency management
- It’s a small effort that pays off regularly.
Streaming & Messaging: Kafka
Kafka (including Amazon MSK) is another area where upgrades are often delayed.
Why it matters:
- Broker stability improves
- Consumer lag handling gets better.
- Security protocols evolve
- Operational tooling becomes simpler.
Running old Kafka versions increases operational complexity and limits scalability, exactly the opposite of why teams adopt Kafka in the first place.
Security Is the Obvious Reason — But Not the Only One
Yes, upgrades fix vulnerabilities. But focusing only on security misses the bigger picture. Regular upgrades also:
- Reduce operational issues
- Improve performance
- Simplify troubleshooting
- Keep documentation relevant
- Make onboarding easier
- Prevent “hero-driven” operations.
The Real DevOps Mindset Shift
The most mature DevOps teams don’t ask:
“Do we need to upgrade?”
They ask:
“How do we make upgrades routine and low-risk?”
That shift changes everything.
Upgrades become:
- Smaller & Easier
- Predictable
- Tested
- Planned
- Automated where possible
- And most importantly, boring.
Final Thoughts
Regular upgrades are not about chasing the latest version. They are about:
- Respecting the lifecycle of your tools
- Protecting your systems from silent failures
- Giving teams confidence to change and improve
At To The New, our experience across multiple products and client environments has taught us one thing:
The cost of regular upgrades is always lower than the cost of delaying them.
And in DevOps, the best systems are the ones that quietly keep working — because someone took care of them, one upgrade at a time. Reach out to us at TO THE NEW for handling your upgrades and other devops tasks!
