We at Zope Zone like to take a little bit of a wait and see approach. We stick to baked releases like 2.5.2 and 2.6.2 so as to make sure everything works.

To start, we download and install the new Zope installation in a new directory and running on a different IP (using Apache to proxy pass behind). After the install, we boot it up under debug mode to see if there are any errors.

If it starts up ok, we log into it via the ZMI and poke around to see if everything is ok. We go back and check the command line to see if any errors pop up.

If all is good, we move all the products over from our old installation (production) into the new version as well as copy over the Data.fs. Restart Zope and look for errors. Log in and look for errors.

If all of that looks good, we run it for a bit. Poke around the different sites and see if everything works. We leave it running for a week or so, to see if it does ok and play with it now and again testing major functions (CMF).

At the end of that, we migrate from one Zope to the other with the following.

1) We change the IP of the new Zope while it is off.
2) We shut down the production version
3) Copy over the Data.fs
4) Start new version
5) Tar up and move over the Z2.log files

And we are up and running.