What are the changes in the utility network creation and upgrade after the release of ArcGIS Pro 2.7?

Answer

Beginning with ArcGIS Pro 2.7, the utility network version of the utility network dataset that is created or upgraded when working with an enterprise geodatabase is determined by both versions of ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Enterprise.

Note:
In previous releases, the version of a created or upgraded utility network is determined solely by the ArcGIS Pro version, but this is changed with the release of ArcGIS Pro 2.7.

This change is made because of the confusion that resulted in the earlier versions of ArcGIS Utility Network where the ArcGIS Pro versions do not match with the equivalent ArcGIS Enterprise deployment versions. With the release of ArcGIS Pro 2.7, the Create Utility Network and Upgrade Dataset tools take into account the version of the federated server for the portal to determine the version of the created or upgraded utility network. This ensures the version of the utility network is always compatible with the current version of ArcGIS Server.

For multi-machine deployments

In a multi-machine deployment with various versions of ArcGIS Server installed and federated servers, the version of the created or upgraded utility network is compatible with the highest release available. For example, when creating a utility network using ArcGIS Pro 2.7, the client connected to a deployment where the highest ArcGIS Enterprise release is 10.8.1, the version of the created utility network is 4. If the highest ArcGIS Enterprise release is 10.7, the version of the created utility network is 3. For more information, refer to ArcGIS Blog: What's New for ArcGIS Utility Network in ArcGIS Pro 2.7.

Note:
To understand the general rules when working with mixed releases and the utility network compatibility, refer to ArcGIS Pro: Utility Network Version and ArcGIS Pro: Utility network compatibility sections in ArcGIS Pro: ArcGIS platform compatibility for more information.

The following table outlines the ArcGIS platform compatibility for a utility network.