Deployment Environments and Upgrade Process
Last updated 11/02/2026
Types of Deployment Environments
Five applications are deployed in the cloud using Kubernetes. Five has three types of deployments, the deployment environments that are available for you are dependent on your subscription.
The following deployment environments are available in Five:
- Development
- Testing
- Production
Development Environment
| Plan | Who can deploy to the development environment |
|---|---|
| Basic | Administrator, Control, and Developer users |
| Team | Administrator, Control, and Developer users |
| Business | Administrator, Control, and Developer users |
| Enterprise | Administrator, Control, and Developer users |
Development deployment URL format: userID-instanceID-applicationID-sitePrefix.5au.dev
Example development deployment URL: control-default-banking-bankworld.5au.dev
The development environment is available for all plans.
Basic Plan
The Basic plan only has a development environment and a running development application with no testing or production environments. For a Basic plan, your Five development environment will shut down after two hours of inactivity and you will need to log back in.
Your application that you develop in Five is deployed to the development environment and will continue running if it is flagged as the production application. Any other applications will shut down after two hours of inactivity, you will need to log back into your Five development environment and you may need to remove the deployment from the development environment before redeploying your application again.
For your initial deployment, if the instance of your application is set to default, you can click the Deploy to Development button in Five's toolbar, otherwise, click the Deploy to Development button on the Cluster Management page. Five knows it is the initial deployment and will take eveything that your application in the development environment holds.
When you make changes to your application and click the Run button after your initial deployment, all changes will be pushed into your application, including a production application. There is no upgrade action in the development environment, each time the Run button is clicked, the latest application changes are automatically applied.
When your Five account is upgraded, to update the underlying image (version) for your application, the development environment must be removed from deployment and then deployed again. This redeployment creates a new image with the updated version.
Team and Business Plans
The Team and Business plans can effectively use the development environment to check the changes to their application development. For a Team or Business plan, your Five development environment will shut down after two hours of inactivity and you will need to log back in.
When you deploy to the development environment, you will see your changes without having to apply these changes to your live application in the production environment. Effectively, you can keep checking your changes before making the commitment of deploying to the testing (the testing environment is unavailable for a Team plan) or production environments. When you make a change to your application in Five and after you have initially deployed to the development environment, you can click the Run button to see your application changes immediately.
Any applications deployed to the development environment will shut down after 2 hours of inactivity, you will need to log back into your Five development environment and you may need to remove the deployment from the development environment before redeploying your application again.
Enterprise Plan
Your development environment will work exactly like the Team and Business plans, however, your Five account and all deployment environments will continually run if you do not sign out from the accounts.
Deploying to Development
When an application is deployed to the development environment, a container running your application is started within the Five development environment and your application becomes available to use. These containers execute your application and contain your data. Multiple users can work concurrently together on the one application. Each user can use the same instance definition and deploy to the development environment. Each user will get an instance of the application in their own container which points to a shared database held in its own container. The definition of the application will update for each user when they click the Deploy to Development or Run buttons for their running instance.
The default instance of your application can be deployed from any view in Five. The Deploy to Development button will be available in Five's toolbar. Once your application has been deployed for the first time, you are able to use your application as an end-user would. The Deploy to Development button will be replaced with several other buttons, the Run and Remove from Development buttons will be the main ones you will use when working with your application in the development environment.
When multiple users are developing the one application, they will see each other's schema changes when they click the Run button, however, changes to the database will occur instantly as all users are using the same database.
Users of your running application will not see any new changes unless they log out and sign back in.
Development Deployment Recap
- Database server is created
- Application container is created
- All changes will be pushed to the live application when the Deploy/Run button is clicked for the Basic plan
- Team, Business, and Enterprise plans can use the development environment to check your development before applying to your live application
- All users have their own container holding an instance of the application
- Users will have database changes instantly
- Users will have schema changes when they deploy/run the application
- Application container is taken down when removed from development
- Basic plan - Development deployment is your live site for your production application
- Basic plan - The users of your running application, will need to log out and sign back in to see new changes
- Team plan - Development deployment can move to the production deployment
- Business and Enterprise plans - Development deployment can move to the testing deployment
Testing Environment
| Plan | Who can deploy to the testing environment |
|---|---|
| Basic | Unavailable |
| Team | Unavailable |
| Business | Administrator and Control users |
| Enterprise | Administrator and Control users |
Testing deployment URL format: instanceID-applicationID-sitePrefix.5au.dev
Example testing deployment URL: default-banking-bankworld.5au.dev
Basic and Team Plans
The testing environment is not available for the Basic and Team plans. The production application for a Basic plan runs in the development environment. The Team plan moves their application straight into the production environment when you are ready to make your application live.
Business and Enterprise Plans
The testing environment is for you to test any changes you have made before they are pushed to the production environment. For a Business plan, your running application in the testing environment will shut down after 4 hours of inactivity and you will need to log back into Five and run it again via the Cluster Management page. The testing environment will continually run on an Enterprise plan.
Deploying to Testing
The first time you deploy the instance of your application to the testing environment, Five knows it is the initial deployment and will take everything that your application in the development environment holds. Thereafter, whenever you use the Run and Remove from Testing buttons, your application will not be upgraded with any changes you may have performed in the development environment after your initial testing deployment.
Upgrading Testing
To apply updates, the Upgrade button must be used. When you upgrade the version of your application in the testing environment, you can either:
- Click the Remove from Testing button, followed by the Upgrade button - this will:
- Remove your application from the testing environment
- Upgrade your application with everything the development environment holds, inclusive of application changes and image upgrades
- Run the upgraded version of your application to the testing environment; or
- Click the Upgrade button for testing - this will perform the upgrade as above in one click
The following will occur when transitioning a new version of your application to the testing environment:
- The Upgrade button needs to be clicked
- The test container holding the application will be taken down
- The database server container is not taken down
- Automatic table upgrades will occur
- A new container will hold the new version of the application to begin testing
Testing Deployment Recap
To recap, the first time you deploy to the testing environment, Five automatically applies all existing upgrades. After that initial deployment, upgrades are no longer applied automatically. Any subsequent changes must be applied maually by clicking the Upgrade button. The Upgrade button will apply all changes to the testing environment without the need to remove it from from deployment. The Run and Remove from Testing buttons will not apply changes to your application in the testing environment after the initial deployment.
Development does not need to be taken down to move to testing. You can still be working in the development environment and start the next version of your application.
Five will not allow your application to be deployed from development straight into the production environment if you are on a Business or Enterprise plan, it must go through the testing deployment before it can be hosted in production. The testing environment should closely resemble the production environment as it is the last place to find any issues before moving into production, except if you are on a Basic or Team plan.
On initial deployment to the testing environment, the database schema will be created and held in its own dedicated database in the database server container. A test container is deployed holding your application testing instance that will point to the database server container. Unlike development, there is only ever one test container per instance of the application.
On a successful testing phase, you can move your application to the production environment for your end-users to use.
Production Environment
| Plan | Who can deploy to the production environment |
|---|---|
| Basic | Unavailable |
| Team | Administrator and Control users |
| Business | Administrator and Control users |
| Enterprise | Administrator and Control users |
Production deployment URL format: instanceID-applicationID-sitePrefix.5au.co
Example production deployment URL: default-banking-bankworld.5au.co
Basic Plan
For the Basic plan, the development environment acts as the production environment. Each time the Run button is clicked, a new version of the application is immediately deployed and goes live.
Team, Business, and Enterprise Plans
The production environment is where you deploy the latest version of your application to go live and allow your users to use it. This is the environment where your users see, experience, and interact with the latest version of your application. The production environment will continually run.
For a Team plan, you will move your application from the development environment into the production environment.
For Business or Enterprise plans, you will move your application from the development environment into the testing environment and lastly into the production environment.
Deploying to Production
The first time you deploy the instance of your application to the production environment, Five knows it is the initial deployment and will take everything that your application in the testing environment holds, for a Team plan it will take eveything that your application in the development environment holds. Thereafter, whenever you use the Run and Remove from Production buttons, your application will not be upgraded with any changes you may have performed in the development environment after your initial production deployment.
Upgrading Production
For Business and Enterprise plans, you will need to upgrade testing before applying the upgrade to production.
To apply updates, the Upgrade button must be used. When you upgrade the version of your application in the production environment, you can either:
- Click the Remove from Production button, followed by the Upgrade button - this will:
- Remove your application from the production environment
- Upgrade your application with everything the testing environment (Business and Enterprise plans) or development environment (Team plan) holds, inclusive of application changes and image upgrades
- Deploy the upgraded version of your application to the production environment; or
- Click the Upgrade button for production - this will perform the upgrade as above in one click
The following will occur when transitioning a new version to the production environment:
- The Upgrade button needs to be clicked
- The production container holding the application will be taken down
- Automatic table upgrades will occur
- A new container will hold the new version of the application
Production Deployment Recap
On a Team plan, when an application is deployed to the production environment, the lastest development version is copied and a container is started in its own production application instance that is segregated from all other production deployments to ensure the safety of your application and customer data.
On a Business or Enterprise plan, when an application is deployed to the production environment, the latest testing version is copied and a container is started in its own production application instance that is segregated from all other production deployments to ensure safety of your application and customer data.
On deployment to the production environment, Five will move the current instance from testing, when on a Business or Enterprise plan, otherwise, the current instance from development, when on a Team plan, and a new container will be made to hold the production instance. Development and testing do not need to be taken down to move to production. An application deployed to the production environment will have its own container and will point to the database held in its own dedicated database server container. Unlike the development and testing deployments, the database is held in its own container to improve performance, ie, an application cannot be slowed down by another application.