What gets updated?

[bluenix]

When updating DA, are all the services like Apache, PHP, MySQL etc. updated too?

If not, is it safe to update them manually?

 

[Aspegic]

When updating DA, are all the services like Apache, PHP, MySQL etc. updated too?

No

If not, is it safe to update them manually?

That depends on a lot of things, like the linux version you're running, what version of the services you're planning to upgrade, wether or not you've made any customizations to scripts/config files etc.

In general I've had good results using the update scripts generously provided by @how@ in the How-To Guides forum. But there are no guarantees.