Patching Strategy - poll

Question

We have been hotfix averse in our 5.3 environment and endeavor to do better in 6. While realizing the burden that testing and regression testing incurs on every one - not to mention the 'Oops, we didn't test for that' PRD incidents that happens from time to time, I was wondering if others could share their patching strategy for Tidal.
I would be interested to know:
Do you actively look at the monthly releases and do you ALWAYS apply the monthly released hotfixes?
If not always, how often do you routinely patch (not including critical hotfixes)
Does Tidal fall under some compliance guidelines that require you to be updated on patches?
How long does the new hotfix sit in DEV before you bless it for PRD? Do you have a formal regression...or any testing that users sign off on for each hotfix before it can be applied to PRD or do you just let it sit in DEV for a month or two and apply to PRD if no issues are reported? We have 15 or so teams that use Tidal so its a challenge since they use the product differently.
If things go awry in PRD, do you perform a backout, or do you engage support but not back out hotfix?
Do you automate any of your testing (ha!) - really wanting to get some basic testing criteria for patches - in addition to the info from the readme that you care about testing.
Do you bundle your hotfix with the DB and OS patches in one go, or do you deploy them separately?
We hadn't planned on patching our agents when we upgrade to 6 (too many moving parts). Any tips on how you handle agent patching - do you do it in one go or rollout a few at a time? Is it autmated?
Thanks again - this forum is really useful to to learn how other companies use, manage and maintain this tool. It is one of our most critical applications so we really thread lightly on any changes to PRD.

Answer 1

Do you actively look at the monthly releases and do you ALWAYS apply the monthly released hotfixes?
5.3.1 Yes we review the readme and decide on a case by case basis
We were bit by the change in quoted behavior
6.1 We will be applying patches more frequently but apply each one – 1 month lag
If not always, how often do you routinely patch (not including critical hotfixes)
5.3.1 We do not routinely patch (current prod rev 5.3.1.318)
6.1 – 1 month lag ( honestly I feel more comfortable now that they are publishing monthly)
Does Tidal fall under some compliance guidance that require you to be updated on patches?
Not for our organization we have business and change control but no software patching requirement
How long does the new hotfix sit in DEV before you bless it for PRD? Do you have a formal regression...or any testing that users sign off on for each hotfix before it can be applied to PRD or do you just let it sit in DEV for a month or two and apply to PRD if no issues are reported? We have 15 or so teams that use Tidal so its a challenge since they use the product differently.
No formal timetable for testing in DEV but we also then apply to UAT then to PRD. In general we run for several months in DEV 1 month in UAT. We time prod with a windows patch weekend. We also leverage a Vcloud/Wmware Lab environment and look at the install via a DEMO license... which we have found very useful
Generally our internal customers are either application support or developers who can pick up on root cause easier that regular users
If things go awry in PRD, do you perform a back out, or do you engage support but not back out hotfix?
It all depends on severity of impact, ability to reach support, and time to apply fix.
We wouldn’t be afraid to either back out or fix and move forward but would likely back out to “working” version
Do you automate any of your testing (ha!) - really wanting to get some basic testing criteria for patches - in addition to the info from the readme that you care about testing.
We have a series of jobs that test some basic functionality but it could always be expanding and improved. We insert them ad-hoc to test but plan on automating a "test suite" of jobs with more frequent patching
Do you bundle your hotfix with the DB and OS patches in on go, or do you deploy them separately?
We try to limit the changes where possible. From an O/S perspective we patch Prd every other month and dev every month… so we just time properly
Depending on Cisco patch we might run on a non PRD O/S patch weekend
We hadn't planned on patching our agents when we upgrade to 6 (too many moving parts). Any tips on how you handle agent patching - do you do it in one go or rollout a few at a time? Is it autmated?
I like you thinking.. As long as Agents are at a 6x compatible level I would recommend that as a follow up change after you are confirmed stable.
Typically we roll out all simultaneously, currently not automated but we are looking to automate for 6.1.x