patch management

We currently install patches 4 times a year. All requested patches get added to one of those four times. During each of the four patching events we do a full system test in our test environment to insure that no ill effects are caused by the patches. If a patch is needed that is an emergency we will install that patch (in between patching events) but it must be agreed upon by all parties (we run all three suites). This has worked for us so far. The only bump in the road has been patches that require another patch. That sometimes causes the testing to run long but for the most part it has worked out well. We are still coming up with a strategy to handle MSP's and ESP's. If you have more specific questions let me know and I will see if I can answer them.

Thanks.
Matt

To tell if a specific CTP has been applied to a PL, or which CTPs have been applied, I have been using David's script patch_ss.sh
available at http://www.schronce.net/lawson/

Note: patch_ss.sh calls patch_list.sh so you'll need both.

Works really slick and eliminates a lot of time/work/effort.

Thanks. We have not been doing updates on 8.x but are upgrading to 9 and plan to start a regular (monthly?) upgrade, patch process. Does your sys admin person handle this? Is it a group effort between customer service, IT and the developers? Do you track what's been done with a spreadsheet? I know these are basic questions but I think people have figured out these processes and probably have a system in place. I would love to know whatever you feel you can share. Thanks!

No problem.

Our patch cycle is a joint effort between our users and IT. We are firm believers in testing so we load everything into a test environment and IT as well as users do a full integrated test. The users decide which patches to install, we do not install all available patches.

We don't really have a division between System Admins, Developer, etc. We have programmers and analysts as well as a DBA. Our programmers and/or DBA (when needed) do the installation.

We do have a spreadsheet where we track these changes. Our spreadsheet keeps track of each environment/productline and the order they are installed.

Hope this helps.

We have a custom Access database created that we use to manage the patch(es) as the migrate from test to prod, but to be perfectly honest, it doesn't get used much. I am much more apt to run the patch_ss.sh script to create a spreadsheet when needed... actually that would be a good thing to actually put in cron on a regular basis. That way you could link it off of an LBI dashboard, and keep all users informed of the status, dates/times, results of the patch activities.
I'm going to work on something right now, as this seems like a very good idea to me. I'll let you know what I come up with, and if able to will definitely share my script.

Greg:
Thanks. We would be happy to see that if you can share it.
Diana

We are pretty much done patching version 8, but I did develop a front end for that platform that cataloged all of the objects in the CTP libraries and then could browse that database.  I used it to identify whatever CTP objects we had modifications for, although one thing I discovered is that there are a fair number of objects referred to in a patch that really do not change. 

We are attempting to force a policy of no modifications for version 9 rather than proceed with duplicating all of our version 8 modifications in LSF 9.  I haven't applied any patches in LSF 9 yet so can't speak with much authority there.

All: I've written a VERY simple script using David's CTP scripts and have it refreshing a dashboard in LBI every night. If anyone is interested, let me know and I can and will share.

Greg,

I would love to try your script if you can share. xlitang@gmail.com

First of all you need to download and get working David Schronce's patch scripts.  Both of which are available here:  http://www.schronce.net/lawson/

Get both patch_ss.sh and patch_list.sh

Then what I have attached below is the VERY simple script that I have called out of root's crontab every night to keep it fresh.

The only other thing that I have done is linked the .csv file to a LBI Dashboard and given access to it via LBI.

Here's a sample of the URL that I'm using for the link.

http://lawson_app_server:...on/Patch_compare.csv

Please feel free to change any of the paths that you'd need to.

Cheers,

-Greg

Does anyone know what happened to Shcronce.net? All it says now is "Information and scripts related to Lawson Software are no longer available on this server".

As far as what happened to Schronce.net... Yes. David works for Lawson, and they have decided to not let employees post anything on the web outside of Lawson.

I can share the scripts with you all.

Attached, please find the scripts.

Please remove the .txt at the end of the scripts, so that they
appear as patch_ss.sh and patch_list.sh

-Greg

Thank you so much for sharing this information Greg. It is greatly appreciated.