Delaying patch deployment

Until the November patches, I downloaded and applied patches to our 20
servers the Friday after they are released. In October, we had an incident
where an application went south after updates. We are now thinking that it
wasn't the patch afterall. Nevertheless, it caused quite a discussion within
our department. In the end, we decided to extend the wait period an
additional 7 days.

Long ago I posed the question of how long people wait to apply these guys.
That's how I decided on the three day wait. I'd like to ask the question
again to see if the consensous has shifted any.

How long do you wait before applying patches to your servers??

Kahonu wrote:
> Until the November patches, I downloaded and applied patches to our
> 20 servers the Friday after they are released. In October, we had
> an incident where an application went south after updates. We are
> now thinking that it wasn't the patch afterall. Nevertheless, it
> caused quite a discussion within our department. In the end, we
> decided to extend the wait period an additional 7 days.
>
> Long ago I posed the question of how long people wait to apply
> these guys. That's how I decided on the three day wait. I'd like to
> ask the question again to see if the consensous has shifted any.
>
> How long do you wait before applying patches to your servers??

To actual servers?

Depends on the patches (what they do, what they affect - we usually read up
on them first) and how they react on our test-servers..
Usually within a week of release they are out on our production servers.
This excludes service packs - which may be tested more thoroughly and take
longer - if for no other reason than how many things/changes they contain.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html