For AI agents: visit https://vault.docs.blockdaemon.com/llms.txt for an index of all pages formatted in Markdown and endpoints in OpenAPI.

Institutional Vault upgrades replace the full deployment artifact set — infrastructure definitions, command-line tooling, and application containers. Do not upgrade by swapping container images alone.

## Before you upgrade

Every upgrade must begin with these steps, regardless of infrastructure provider:

1. **Review the release changelog.** Check the [Institutional Vault Release Notes](https://vault.docs.blockdaemon.com/changelog) for the target version. Pay close attention to the **Breaking changes and migrations** section — it lists API changes, field renames, and required configuration updates.

2. **Take a database backup.** Follow the [System Backup and Restore Process](https://vault.docs.blockdaemon.com/docs/wallet-state-backup-and-restore-process) to create a point-in-time backup before starting. This is your rollback safety net.

3. **Verify current version health.** Confirm all services are running and healthy before beginning the upgrade. All services expose `/health` endpoints that your orchestrator or scheduler should already be probing — confirm they report healthy before proceeding.

4. **Confirm the target version.** Ensure the release bundle version matches the version documented in the changelog. The `## Versions` section of each release note lists the exact image tags for all components.

5. **Plan a maintenance window.** Upgrades are performed as rolling updates with minimal service impact. Notify stakeholders of the scheduled upgrade window and expected completion time.

## Rollback strategy

If the upgrade fails or introduces a critical issue, the rollback approach depends on whether database schema migrations were applied during the upgrade.

### Patch upgrades (no schema migrations)

For patch releases that only update application binaries without database changes, redeploy the previous version using your infrastructure tooling:

- **Azure (Helm):** `helm rollback <release-name> <previous-revision> -n <namespace>`
- **AWS (CDK/CloudFormation):** Redeploy the previous release bundle with `make update` using the prior Makefile and deployer artifacts.

### Upgrades with schema migrations

Policy Nodes use a forward-only data generation model — once the database has been migrated to a newer schema version, the previous application binaries cannot operate against the updated database. In this case:

1. **Redeploy the previous application version** using your infrastructure tooling (Helm rollback, CDK redeploy, etc.).
2. **Restore the database** from the pre-upgrade backup. See the [System Backup and Restore Process](https://vault.docs.blockdaemon.com/docs/wallet-state-backup-and-restore-process). This is required because the previous application version is not compatible with the migrated schema.
3. **Restart all services** in dependency order (NATS → Policy Nodes → Wallet).

### After rollback

Confirm all services are healthy and the wallet API is responding. Verify the `/health` endpoints report healthy and that a test operation completes end-to-end.

> ⚠️
> ### Warning:
> The pre-upgrade database backup is the only rollback path when schema migrations have been applied. Always confirm you have a verified backup before proceeding. After a database restore, any transactions that occurred between the backup and the restore point will be lost — on-chain balances will reconcile automatically.

## Cloud-specific procedures

Select your deployment platform for step-by-step upgrade instructions:

- [Azure Wallet Upgrade](https://vault.docs.blockdaemon.com/docs/azure-wallet-upgrade)
- [AWS Wallet Upgrade](https://vault.docs.blockdaemon.com/docs/aws-wallet-upgrade)

# We Are Here to Help!

Please contact us via [email](mailto:support@blockdaemon.com) or support chat if you encounter an issue, bug, or need assistance. Don't forget to include any relevant details about the problem. To request a wallet form and Institutional Vault Approver form, please click [here](/content/support/index.html) or contact [our sales team](/content/get-in-touch/?contact-sales/index.html).

Updated 3 months ago.