More Good Reasons to Keep Media and Documentation.
Whenever you are planning on upgrading your operating system, or application software, it's always a good idea to keep the following for at least several years after the upgrade has completed:
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Operating System Software and Service Pack Media.
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Application Software and Service Pack Media.
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System an application software/database backups.
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All printed and electronic documentation – This would include installation notes, usage and configuration manuals, and license keys.
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User ID's and Password for administrative level users, for the operation system, application software, and backup media.
Failure to do the above can cause severe issues down the line if something is needed from the old system.
One recent example if this is:
A customer upgraded from CP 7.5 to CP SQL.
After they had been on the new version for several months, the owner took upon himself to throw away all of his version 7.5 Media, Documentation, License and Activation Keys.
After some time had passed, MIS personnel decided to re-stage this production server with a newer operating system that would support more RAM. As part of this process they copied most of the older 7.5 programs and data fields to an external hard drive and then low-level formatted the computers main hard drive.
A newer operating system was installed on this older server. After re-installing and configuring their CP SQL software, they wanted to put the old version 7.5 software on the restaged server. However, they had no media from which to re-install CounterPoint 7.5, nor did they have a version of Pervasive that would be compatible with the new operating system, or the licenses required to use it.
This created an artificial situation where no one could access the old data. This could be critical if the business was audited and was required to provide history that was not in the new CP SQL database. Normally, CCS would recommend staging a new server and keeping the older server/software online, or transferring it's contents to a local area workstation specifically for admin access/use.
If you have questions of concerns regarding future server upgrades, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department.