Re: ALPHA_V732_MASTER_ECO_LIST.txt

Hi,

I'm responsible for the patch process. I thought it was best to
answer all this in the form of an FAQ.

*Can patch lists in the UPDATE kits and master lists say which kits
were not in the previous UPDATE kit?
Absolutely, good idea. What I will do on future UPDATE kits is to add
an asterisk to the patch kit name if that patch was not in the
previous UPDATE kit.

*Why are there still UPDATE kits for V7.3-2.

At the time the VMS732_UPDATE-V1100 kit came out, the official plans
were to make that the last UPDATE kit for V7.3-2. As it turned out,
it was later decided that was not the best decision for our customers
and another one was planned. That's about the state of V7.3-2 UPDATE
kits now - when the time comes to start producing the next round of
UPDATE
kits we'll decide if we should do another one for V7.3-2. Personally,
at some point UPDATE kits for V7.3-2 will stop but I don't see it
happening for the next year (my opinion, not official policy).

*Why are UPDATE kits required kits?

A little history here. We often send out patch kits that have
dependencies on other patch kits. Before UPDATE kits , these
dependencies, over time, would get unmanageable - Kit A requires Kit
B, Kit B does not require kit A but Kit A does require Kit C which
now, since Kit B requires Kit A, it also now requires Kit C
but.....you get the idea. UPDATE kits were started as a way to set a
new patch baseline and eliminate all those dependencies. To
accomplish this, once an UPDATE kit ships it beccomes a required kit
for any patch kit that is produced after the release of the UPDATE
kit. There is one caveat - when we started regularly scheduled
releases of UPDATE kits we changed the requirement policy. Now, patch
kits that require a reboot will require the latest UPDATE kit. Patch
kits that do not require a reboot will require the UPDATE kit released
before the latest kit. This is to try and help customers avoid an
unnecessary reboot if they haven't yet installed the latest kit.

*Why can't UPDATE kits only install what has not yet been installed
with individual patch kits?

The UPDATE kits set a baseline patch level. Without installing
everything in the UPDATE kit we really have no assurance that the
baseline has been set. With that said, two things were mentioned -
marking the database that an image has already been installed. As Norm
has mentioned, forget it, it's too difficult from an engineering
standpoint. You are talking a major rewrite of the PCSI facility.
It's not that it is difficult, there is not enough payback for such an
investment of resources. The other option is to do something within
the patch itself. I actually built a test UPDATE kit that checked to
see what had already been installed and did not reinstall those
images. I installed it on a system with no previous patches and on a
system with all the previous patches installed. I purposely used a
version (I think it was V7.3-2) that had a lot of patches against it;
my expectation being that there would be a significant reduction in
installation time. There was almost none and for that reason and
becuse of the baseline thing, I abandoned this idea.

*What patches are included in UPDATE kits?

UPDATE kits do not ship anything new. They only ship patch kits that
have been released and in the field for some time. The length of time
is dependent on the complexity of the patch kit. If an UPDATE kit has
a functional problem with an included image that requires us to pull
the kit, what we will do is pull the kit and remove the offending
patch kit and re-issue the UPDATE kit ; not add a new fix to the
UPDATE kit and re-issue it.


* How does PCSI treat images?

If a patch kit is contains an image that is the same version, or
later, as the image in an already installed patch kit, the image will
be installed. If the image in the new kit is older, the image in the
new kit will not be installed. If PCSI has no way of knowing, e.g.
the image on the system is an engineering test image, and does not
have the needed data in the image header, the image in the patch kit
will be installed, wiping out the older, questionable image. There is
a warning in the patch docmentation about this.

George Pagliarulo
ECO Release Process
OpenVMS Sustaining Engineering
Hewlett-Packard Company
e-mail: george.pagliarulo@xxxxxx


.

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