Updating Knime Server Recommendations

KNIME Server
#1

Hello ,

currently we are running Knime Server 4.10.2.0049
On which facts should one decide, whether a knime server update is ‘nice to have’ or mandatory?
If knime-server (war-file and Executor) are updated (KNIME Server Release Notes and Update Guide), the client-components (knime analytics platform) have to be updated as well. Workflows I guess once stored with a new version cannot be used on a previous version of knime server (need of backup)?
I ask with the intention to update as rarely as possible.

Greetings B.Kochs

#2

Hi @b_kochs,

There are no “mandatory updates”, although we do recommend to at least stay up-to-date within a certain release line in order to make sure you get important bug fixes. For KNIME Server 4.10.x, the most recent release is 4.10.4.
Since new features are rarely backported, moving on to a new major release is necessary if you want to offer the new features to your users.

And to answer your final question, yes, there is always a risk that a workflow created with a newer version of KNIME will not run on an older version - most notably if the workflow uses nodes that were not yet available in the old version. But if the workflow uses only old nodes, and is not saved with data, it should also open on an older version. But still, while we do guarantee backwards compatibility, the same can’t be promised for the other way round.

Cheers,
Roland