Overview

With so many malware attacks happening in the healthcare sector each year, we should all take updates and upgrades more seriously. Fear mongering aside, there are actually some great benefits to updating your learning environment. Often, bugs that you didn't even realize were affecting you will be fixed and new features will be added.

Here are the top reasons why you should always be updating your learning environment to the latest version.

• Cyber Attacks. It seems like every week, we hear another major news story about a ransomware or malware attack that's affected a huge organization. The older your release, the longer hackers have to find bugs and issues to exploit. Cyber attackers can also read Moodle's release notes, which list the security issues addressed by their latest release. If you neglect to update your system and install the latest security patches, you are increasing your risk of a cyber attacker exploiting the known vulnerabilities of your system.
• Bug Fixes & New Features. While security is a major reason to update software and can't be overstated, there are some cool benefits to software updates. Often you'll see improved performance, bug fixes and/or new features. Since our clients' feedback is at the center of Dual Code's development process, you'll most likely find user experience and user interaction improvements with most new software releases.
• Software End-of-life. As new major releases become available, older releases reach an end-of-life, at which point, Dual Code stops supporting them. Once a release has reached its end-of-life, Dual Code no longer fixes bugs or security issues with that older release. By remaining on this older version, you are not only at risk of a cyber attack, but Dual Code may also not be able to support you.

Upgrade / Update Process

New in 3.9.12. When a new update becomes available, our automated process installs a copy of your live server (after anonymizing some of the user information for privacy reasons) on one our internal update staging servers designed specifically for update testing purposes. It then applies the software update and runs a complete system health check, which executes over 21,000 automated tests. Any failure will be inspected by one of our specialists for resolution.

Once 100% of the tests pass, the system will automatically schedule the update of both your production and staging server and send you a notification via email and using the system's built-in notification tool.  Note that starting in 3.9.12, the update of the production and staging server are scheduled to take place at the same time as you are no longer required to review and/or approve the update of your production server.  That being said, if it is your preference to verify the new functionality on a staging server prior to updating your production server, you may accelerate the update of your staging server.

Depending on the nature of the update, you also have the option to reschedule and/or skip the update on your production server as well. Skipping an update is only possible if the update is not mandatory (e.g. if it doesn't contain critical security issues AND if your system is no more than 2 releases behind). 

This fully automated process ensures that keeping your site up-to-date is simple, easy and safe! It requires zero-touch from you and your team. And it is definitely much safer than the risk associated with not upgrading your learning environment!

Release Schedule

Dual Code's release schedule and versioning scheme is similar to Moodle's schedule for LTS (Long-Term Support) releases. We try to release a new major version every 24 months and a minor release every other month. We also continue to support the older release by providing security updates an critical bug fixes for a one-year period after the newest release is available. This allows you to plan your major upgrades while being assured that your existing release is secure. 

The following table highlights some key dates for specific releases of the Dual Code Healthcare Edition in reverse chronological order.

Major and Minor Versions

Starting with version 3.0, the version numbers will consist of three numbers separated by a dot, for example 3.0.3 or 3.1.4. The first two numbers, like 3.0 or 3.1, represent the major version. The third number distinguishes minor versions within the same major version.

Between two minor versions, Dual Code continues to do custom development work and enhancements to Moodle for our customers. These customizations are initially only released to the customer(s) that requested them. If we feel they are valuable for the majority of our customers, Dual Code will include these customizations in our next minor or major release. We may also send these enhancements to Moodle itself if we feel it would be valuable for the Moodle community in general.

Upgrade Expectations

• Minor Version: Minor version upgrade process for customers using Dual Code Healthcare Edition typically contain 3-8 new features or feature enhancements, as well as bug fixes and security patches.

• Major Version: During a major version upgrade there may be some major user interface changes that are part of the Moodle, Dual Code HCE, or a third party portion of the software.

Source Code Maturity Level

The Dual Code learning environment, which is based on Moodle, follows the same version numbers as Moodle. In other words, version 3.9.3 of the HCE (Healthcare Edition) contains the same source code as version 3.9.3 of Moodle, with the exception of the enhancements made by Dual Code.

It is not uncommon for new major software releases (not just from Moodle but from any software company) to contain a higher than usual number of software bugs. As such, Dual Code never accepts the first minor version of a major release from Moodle (e.g. 3.0.0, 3.1.0, etc.). Instead, Dual Code waits for until the second, minor release before integrating to it. This ensures a greater maturity level of our source code.

* Moodle is a registered trademark owned by Martin Dougiamas, Founder and Lead Developer of Moodle,