Upgrade Geodatabase button is active again after upgrade is already complete

[ShiraBezalel]

We upgraded all of our geodatabases to the version 10 schema a few months ago (from 9.3.1 SP2). This condensed the SDE system tables down to six as explained in this post http://blogs.esri.com/dev/blogs/geodatabase/archive/2010/03/15/the-simplified-geodatabase-schema-in-....

Great. So, I just recently applied ArcGIS Desktop SP3 and now notice in ArcCatalog that the geodatabases are available again to be upgraded -- that is, in the properties page of each geodatabase, the Upgrade Geodatabase button is no longer grayed out.

Why? I don't believe there were any schema changes released in SP3, so why is it possible to upgrade again? I clicked on the button and to my surprise, it successfully upgraded according to the results. But what exactly did it do? Why did it do it? Has anyone else seen this? Very perplexing to say the least.

Version info:

database = SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1
sde = ArcSDE for MS SQL Server 64 bit 10 SP1  (direct connect)
desktop = ArcGIS Desktop 10 SP3

[VinceAngelo]

If your ArcSDE is at 10.0SP1, and your Desktop at 10.0 SP3, your ArcSDE *is* available for upgrade.
You *should* apply the upgrade, which would address the SP3 and SP2 issues to your instance
(applying binary changes is only half an ArcSDE upgrade; you also need to update the database).

- V

[ShiraBezalel]

Thanks Vince. I guess I was under the mistaken assumption that the Upgrade Geodatabase function is for simply upgrading to the new version 10 schema. This now makes sense. Do you know if there is any danger in updating the database in this way before the SDE binary on the server has been upgraded?

(FYI I been working with Tech Support on this issue for the past week and wish they could have told me what you told me in your simple response. Would have saved a lot of time.)

[VinceAngelo]

Doing the upgrade from ArcCatalog was new at 10.0 (previously upgrades were done with 'sdesetup',
which would have had to have been updated before the upgrade could proceed).  If your clients are
all Direct Connect, then the status of the application server build is less significant, but the application
server should certainly be at the same release as the RDBMS.

Sometimes my "terse" responses are interpreted as "gruff" -- I'm glad I could help.

- V