Moving from Moodle 3.0 to Moodle 3.2 is more involved for us than previous upgrades.  This is due to important dates in our Calendar and the end of life support for Ubuntu versions.

• Our current OS version is Ubuntu 14.04 on both Web and DB servers. 14.04 EOLs during block 2 in our 2017/8 session which is not an ideal situation, particularly if a critical update is needed after that date but before our next planned OS upgrade cycle.
• Ubuntu 16.04 only ships with PHP 7.0 which moodle.org notes has ‘engine limitations’ with Moodle 3.2. We don’t want to meet any of those limitations during a term.
• Our current MySQL version (5.5.49) is supported but moodle.org recommends ‘latest’. Ubuntu 16.04 uses version 5.7.17

So the current plan is to upgrade both the web server and database server to 16.04 LTS during the summer break. I have completed several simulations of this upgrade with VMs and also with a physical development server to allow techs and staff early access to Moodle 3.2 for theme design, module testing.

Due to Ubuntu 16.04 using php 7.0 it is necessary to install php 5.6 using the ondrej ppa:

# add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
# apt-get update
# apt-get install php5.6
# apt-get install php5.6-cli php5.6-common php5.6-curl php5.6-gd 
  php5.6-intl php5.6-json php5.6-ldap php5.6-mbstring php5.6-mysql
  php5.6-opcache php5.6-readline php5.6-soap php5.6-xml php5.6-xmlrpc
  php5.6-zip

The Moodle upgrade can then proceed as normal with modules updated where new versions exist. Ubuntu version 16.04 also does not EOL Until April 2021. This gives us plenty of time for ourselves and moodle to transition to php 7.