When the upgrade is finally urgent

Updating Rails often lingers at the bottom of to-do lists, with bug fixes and new features taking priority.

Then the time finally arrives when support is about to drop for the outdated version.

The technical debt now brings the cost of dangerous security holes and vulnerabilities. Upgrading can no longer be swept aside, but it is weighed down by too many unknowns.

Come to grips with the work needed

It can be tough to get your head around the project. Even just scoping out the situation would eat up an unknown amount of valuable developer time.

To make your roadmap we will use a mix of manual and automated analysis to answer questions such as:

Will it take your developers weeks or months?
Would hiring an agency be within budget?
Are there potentially problematic monkeypatches?
Which migration option is best, such as ActiveStorage Vs Shrine?
How long will it take to migrate your controllers to strong params?

That way you can decide what’s best for your team and properly allocate resources.

We have upgraded many applications!

Use our experienced specialists to audit your code

We have upgraded 15 applications, ranging anywhere from 5 to 35 weeks.

We’re regularly asked for rough estimates but it depends on so many factors. The only way to ballpark an estimate for the project is to assess your code.

Each audit takes a senior developer around 3 to 8 days. They manually look at every gem, deprecation warning and API issue. Scripts will assess technical debt and hotspots for potential upgrade issues.

The result is The Roadmap to Upgrade Rails. It is a 15-30 page document, laying out every issue to create an action plan and time estimate to upgrade to the next major Rails version. It can either be followed by your team or to form the basis of our work.

9 steps to create a code audit and action plan

1.

Setup and admin

We have a call to discuss your application and requirements, then sort out contracts, NDAs and source code access.
2.

Code coverage and quality checks

Run SimpleCov and merge the code coverage results if needed to determine the required QA support
3.

Assess technical debt

Find any problem syntax and check the difficulty in bringing it up to date
4.

Challenging hotspots

Look for complex code with little to no test coverage.
5.

Analyse dependencies

Calculate the compatibility with the next major version of Rails and the ease of correcting them.
6.

Check incompatible gems

List every outdated gem and whether removal, replacement or patching is possible.
7.

Look at the required steps

Define which update steps apply to the codebase and each version jump.
8.

Create an action plan

Write out a full list, typically 40-90 tasks, of everything that needs doing to upgrade your application.
9.

Double-blind estimates

Two of our developers will each come up with a best and worst cast estimate, used to calculate time and costs.

Once we have sent you The Roadmap you can then have a call with two of our developers to talk through any questions you might have.

A step by step upgrade plan

We don't give you generic one-size-fits-all advice. The Roadmap to Upgrade Rails is a 15-30 page plan specific to your application, laying out how to upgrade to the next major rails version. It is broken down into:

Followed by a best and worst case estimate of the time and cost required for each minor release jump.

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“The roadmap proved to be useful both in terms of the information that it provided, but also in terms of building my confidence in Ombu Labs ability to deliver the estimate."

Marcus McLaughlin, Head of Engineering at Amitree

"The fastruby.io team executed a full upgrade of our application from Rails 4.0 to 5.1, including preparation for an eventual 5.2 upgrade. The team adapted to our environment and kept a clear focus on the goal, resisting the temptation of feature-type distractions. Their effort allowed us to keep up to date with Rails versions without detracting from progress on other goals."

Ben Langfeld, Solutions Architect at Power HRG

"The fastruby.io team exceeded our expectations. They went above and beyond and tried to help out even when the contract was up. They were willing to integrate with our team, and worked with the Junior Developer on our team to get to full productivity."

Will Bridges, Director of Engineering at Storenvy

Inquire today

Click below to ask about our availability. We are happy to jump on a call to discuss your project and show you an example roadmap.

The Roadmap to Upgrade Rails costs $2,000, with a 1-3 week turnaround depending on our availability.

If you are not 100% happy with The Roadmap, you get your money back.

Contact Us

Discover what your application requires

With a code audit from our Rails upgrade specialists

When the upgrade is finally urgent

Come to grips with the work needed

That way you can decide what’s best for your team and properly allocate resources.

We have upgraded many applications!

Use our experienced specialists to audit your code

9 steps to create a code audit and action plan

1.

Setup and admin

2.

Code coverage and quality checks

3.

Assess technical debt

4.

Challenging hotspots

5.

Analyse dependencies

6.

Check incompatible gems

7.

Look at the required steps

8.

Create an action plan

9.

Double-blind estimates

A step by step upgrade plan

“The roadmap proved to be useful both in terms of the information that it provided, but also in terms of building my confidence in Ombu Labs ability to deliver the estimate."

"The fastruby.io team exceeded our expectations. They went above and beyond and tried to help out even when the contract was up. They were willing to integrate with our team, and worked with the Junior Developer on our team to get to full productivity."

Inquire today