Best practices for clock configuration updates

These best practices should be followed when applying configuration updates. The best practices ensure that clock updates are applied correctly. When the updates are correctly applied, the clocks will resume normal operations and be able to communicate with the application.

A configuration update should never change this parameter in the top-level directory. This parameter should not be applied to all the clocks.


Name	Configuration Parameter	Description
Reader Name	`wbsynch.webservice.serverName`	The reader name of the clock as defined in the application.

Only include new settings or settings that require modification. Do not supply all the parameters contained in the original configuration.
Configuration updates are delta files except for clock.xml. Upgrading from a major release requires a line-by-line analysis of each configuration file provided for the new version to ensure your functionality and configuration is preserved. For example, there are large deltas/differences between versions 6.2.3 and 6.2.4 which could affect your configuration. There is currently no upgrade evaluation available in the installer for this clock. As a result, an upgrade requires careful consideration and an analysis of the differences in configuration between your current version and the new upgrade version.
Subsequent updates must contain any previous changes that you want to retain. For example, if update.1 had a custom configuration provided in the settings.conf file, this custom configuration must be carried forward in all subsequent update directories (for example, update.2, update.3). Subsequent directories include those directories provided in both software and configuration type updates.
After all files are in place on your local directory for the update, you must place an empty text file named update.ready in the system download directory of update.<version>.dir and the update.# directory. If there is no update.ready file, then your clocks do not see the directory and do not start processing the update. You must place an update.ready file in each update.# directory that you create which contains files to be updated.
For example, this configuration update will succeed since it has update.ready files in both the main directory and sub-directory of update.1:
```
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.ready
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.1
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.1\update.ready
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.1\conf
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.1\script
```
This configuration update will not run since it does not have an update.ready file in the sub-directory of update.1:
```
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.ready
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.1
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.1\conf
\ClockDownloadDirectory\update.2022-09-00-0.dir\update.1\script
```
Configuration updates can be applied with the same rules as software updates. The updates can be targeted to all clocks, specific clock types, specific clocks within a clock type or specific clocks.
See Applying clock software updates.