Managed Upgrades for Everest

With over 100+ years of combined experience, we have been there, seen it and handled it with respect with upgrades over the years. Having started with Acware for DOS, becoming the one of the first organizations on Everest ever and all of the subsequent upgrades over the years – there is not much we have not experienced. Check out our history with Everest for more detail on how far back and detailed this experience has been in more detail. 

As of July 2020, MARTEC360 has taken over as the only authorized/certified professional services partner for Everest Software. This means all active maintenance customers with Everest are referred to MARTEC360 to help fulfill their (A) version update requirements discovery (B) managed test upgrades (C) setup/configuration of client environment for client QC checks (D) manage production version upgrades. This professional services status also includes all connector implementations, maintenance, and upgrades for respective version updates for Everest including but not limited to: Avalara, BigCommerce, Crystal Reports modifications, FoxFire WMS, Magento, Shopify, and any other Ignite/Everest customizations and integrations. 

Managed Upgrade FAQ’s

All managed upgrades are handled on either a prepaid T&M Block-Time model or a fixed bid project model (after our team has completed 1 or 2 managed upgrades for an account). While no organization is the same and one size does not fit all – a typical managed upgrade process for an organization with limited to no customizations is typically ~ 20 hours. For larger organizations with more data, more than 1 company or extensive integrations/customizations, the managed upgrade process normally takes more time. The largest scope we have dealt with for an organization upgrading from V2 to V8 was 120 hours + test environment creation. You can learn more about our managed upgrade process or fill out the managed upgrade process contact intake form.

All services through MARTEC360 are direct through us. Please contact Ignite or Everest Software directly related to any questions or concerns related to your platinum subscription.  

  1. Establish connectivity from our AWS test environment with client environment
  2. Backup Everest database(s), company settings and any customizations which are needing to be upgraded
  3. Transfer backups to MARTEC 360 AWS test environment
  4. Configure databases and customizations in test environment
  5. Initiate test upgrades along with any database upgrade error log resolution for version A to version B (for each database)
    note: if going from version 5.x to version 8.x, then there will be 3 upgrades; v5 to v6 (check/fix/test), v6 to v7 (check/fix/test),v7 to v8 (check/fix/test)
  6. Upgrade any customizations to work with the new version
  7. Schedule review call with client for quick Quality Assurance tests (QA)
  8. Provide databases to client to configure in client test environment for user acceptance testing (UAT)
    • if any problems with the software, file necessary support tickets with Ignite
  9. Receive feedback from client that UAT testing is complete / accepted
  10. Schedule go-live
  11. Repeat steps 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 for production upgrade
  12. Go-live
  13. Post go-live limited support / consultation

Optionally (more scope/budget): 

  • Should client need to utilize MARTEC360 AWS test server for their own testing, we will bill the minimum of 1 months AWS bill (continuing until go-live) for the server if the client is not a customer of the MARTEC360 Private Cloud for Everest
  • Should the client need MARTEC360 to stand-up and configure a new environment for them on the new version, the time will be added to the managed upgrade work order. Going from version 5.x/6.x to version 7.x/8.x or above, the hardware and software requirements change. Windows 2016 and SQL 2016 are supported in the later versions. 

We do not make our test servers generally available to the public for security protocol reasons. Should you wish to have a test server stood-up with the respective version you are looking to go to along with access to the Accel Sample Company then this may be accommodated for a nominal fee. Your “databases” and Everest company information will not be setup in these public test servers.

The setup/configuration fee for the respective version is $600. If the instance which you are looking to test on has already been configured and is in general availability in our test environment (ie – it doesn’t need to be configured from scratch for you) then the setup/configuration fee is $350.

There is also a server access fee which is a minimum of 1 month and maximum of 3 months at a rate of $150/month.

This test environment availability and rates herein do not include any consultation time, q/a or how-to support in the new version. Any of those efforts would fall under managed upgrade support, ad hoc business support or you could contact Ignite support/customer service.

You’re on one of the versions between v3 – v6 and considering a managed upgrade to version 7.x or 8.x.

We find there are a couple of important bullet points when discussing this with accounts that are often overlooked.

  • Version 7.x and 8.x are both OS and SQL version upgrades as well.
    Meaning both versions require Windows 2016 and SQL 2016. For simplicity’s sake, we will call this hardware/software and the integration of the ERP within it, the Everest eco-system. Thereby, if your hardware and software were not strategically purchased originally this may equate to some considerable costs increases in order to be ready for the new eco-system. When we work with accounts using the older versions, most are on legacy hardware which leads to complete hardware replacements. Most organizations aim to virtualized servers if/when they are hosting the equipment on-premise nowadays. In scenarios where servers are already virtualized, we find the environments typically are not well equipped to support the current production load, a test environment + the new environment. See our FAQ related to “why the private cloud is better than virtualized servers” in our server environment optimization managed services pages for more detail on why we say these environments are not well equipped to support your organizational goals. This more often than not leads to the reacquisition of new equipment which is where it gets costly quickly between the hardware/software + IT implementation.As part of our managed upgrade process, MARTEC360 can either add the hours to help consider an upgraded hardware/software eco-system or consult with you on what it would look like to migrate your systems to a private cloud for Everest which is fully managed by our experts.
  • E-Commerce and version 7.x / 8.x.
    If you were utilizing the v5 e-com framework or the later .NET framework and are planning to upgrade to v7 or v8 then there is an even larger consideration. In v7 and v8, the original e-com framework and .NET framework have both been deprecated. This ultimately means that as part of the managed upgrade, you will be looking at an implementation of a new e-commerce platform.Much of the team within MARTEC360 has spent the past 20 years working with Everest and e-commerce – even having built our own e-Commerce solution for Everest (PEAK DCP). There are the typical mainstream options that come up early/often in conversations (BigCommerce, Magento & Shopify) as well as other secondary options such as NOP Commerce, WooCommerce, and so on. In short, at MARTEC360, we support all of these options as well as our own PEAK / CAMP platform through either native integrations via the SDK/API or through connectors (such as our Channel Commerce Connector which works with all e-com platforms). When working with the mainstream options, MARTEC360 is not a VAR (value-added reseller). We have relationships with a wide range of ISV’s (integrated system vendor) or SI’s (system integrators) of those platforms and have the know-how/background to help foster relationships with the right partners for successful transitions.

    For a detailed conversation on the pro’s/con’s and estimated budgets for each of these options, please reach out and contact us to book a 2-hour consulting session to cover these topics.

  • Multi-version upgrades
    When upgrading from version 5.x to 8.x, remember that this is not a simple point and click upgrade. We must follow the process outlined herein these FAQs and set up the test upgrade environment to support the version starting from and step through the test upgrade process version by version by version until the final desired version is reached. Each step along the way, we must ensure that the database integrity is met otherwise it may lead to future problems. Each incremental version upgrade, v5 to v6, v6 to v7, and v7 to v8 adds to the managed upgrade time.
  • Customizations
    The upgrade from any version prior to v7 as mentioned is a significant upgrade with resulting advantages. Any customizations which had been prior built to SQL tables, views, stored procedures, or via the SDK/API’s will need to be reviewed and likely upgraded. Depending on the number of customizations (or integrations) and the complexity of them, this may add a significant scope or LOE (level of effort) increase to the hard and soft budgets. As an example, for a customer considering an upgrade from version 2.x to 8.x, we identified the managed upgrade scope to be over 120 hours + internal reviews and code updates by staff to look at nearly 20 yrs of tools/add-ons they had built.

We aim to make the the process and time go as quick as possible. Depending on the number of versions being upgraded, the go-live process could take between 4 hours to 24 hours. On average a typical go-live is between 4-6 hours.