May 12, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Hi ALL
this question is really on policy - best practice.
Would you upgrade your SQL Server installation along with windows security patches at the same time?
If so why? to save time? because you only have a small downtime window?
If NOT why? harder to trouble shoot when things go wrong?
Is this something microsoft recommends?
thanks
May 12, 2009 at 8:09 pm
It's great to hear that you're looking at patching your systems - both the application and operating system.
As always, test your patches in a pre-production environment prior to a production release. Obviously, test like for like.
The timing issue is more about how your organisation separates its teams and their corresponding roles and responsibilities. If you already know that certain patches work together and you can organise the appropriate outages, I don't see that it would be a big problem to patch together.
If you don't know how patches play together or what impact they have on other components, then you shouldn't be deploying them in a production environment in the first place.
As with all changes, changing one variable at a time is certainly easier to troubleshoot than changing 10 at a time and wondering which one (or combination) caused the issue. Its much simpler and less time consuming to roll back one change than to roll back 9.
Read the release notes, what it does, what files they touch, what they fix, what they leave broken, etc...
Test, Test, Test
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Andrew Hatfield
May 13, 2009 at 1:55 pm
thanks Andrew for your reply.
The question was prompted more by the fact that one of the business managers does not like having "his" systems shutdown for scheduled maintenance - so he wanted to have the scheduled windows updates and the application updates done at the same time.
So I was wondering how manay of us are in the same position out there. I have been taught and have always done the two activities separately.
So I was just looking at why we do things they way we do or if there are technical reasons - at least in this case to keep these activities separate
thanks
May 13, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I'd tell him that both of these activities could cause a lot of downtime if there's an issue. Regardless of testing, though you should still test.
It's a risk issue. I'd push him to get downtime in two consecutive weeks and do these separately.
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May 13, 2009 at 2:09 pm
While a business manager should have a say in what are acceptable outage windows and when they occur, they certainly should never dictate what happens and in which order.
That is your job as the IT professional. To see the separation of roles and responsibilities clearly; tell him that he is only allowed to make vendor / sales calls on friday afternoons.
I so wanted to insert a TPS coversheet reference..... 🙂
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Andrew Hatfield
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