Why Doesn't HP Version Patches?

[Craig Johnson_1]

I've been asking/suggesting this for years, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Every time I read something that says "Make sure the following HP-UX patches are installed" I cringe. Even the phone support folks don't always understand that PHCO_3xxxx supercedes PHCO_2xxxx and you don't need the latter. They will argue with you.

Why don't they version them? PHCO_xxxxx-yy??

How simple is that?

[Pete Randall]

I have to admit, Craig - that sounds remarkable simple and logical to me. I take it you've never been able to get an explanation why they don't do it that way?


Pete

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Craig:

I guess, I'd ask, "What's in a number?" The number ascends and more importantly the ITRC Patch Database allows you to easily see successor patches.

I understand your question, but I personally don't find the nomenclature a great hinderance.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Jonathan Fife]

I think the problem with doing it that way is that one patch can supersede multiple sub-patches, sometimes that are unrelated to each other.

You'd wind up with one patch that has multiple names -- now THAT would be confusing!

[Geoff Wild]

They are versioned - each patch number ascends as it is released.

It is quite easy to find patches and revisions online through the HP Patch database.

Rgds...Geoff

[Craig Johnson_1]

Perhaps they don't because it would be too Sun-like. I dunno. I'm no huge Sun fan but their patch nomenclature is much easier to follow.

What really stinks is when not only does an HP-UX patch get updated, but then they change the description field as well.

If an application or whatever says you need these twenty PHxx-nnnnn patches you can literally spend hours trying to figure out if you have them (more recent versions).

[John Payne_2]

Now you are getting into a different arena. HP is doing signifigant work with vendors to get them to start recommending the Quality Pack bundle of patches, not just a pile of patches. If a vendor wants a few patches on top of that, HP is creating Patch Sets for them, where they can put those patches, and you can just go get your Patch Bundle, and your Patch Set, and away you go.

For example, there is a patch set for PeopleSoft v8. It contains the 3 patches you need above the Quality Pack, to have their list of 'required patches".

I believe that you can open an issue with HP about the vendor requiring a pile of (older) patches for your system, and it will get to the right people, who will try to work with that vendor to get them on board with using the quality pack (and possibly a patch set) for their required patches. It just looks so much better when the documentation says "June 2005 Quality Pack or newer" for their required patches.

You should also complain to this vendor that you have had to hunt and peck to see if you had their "required patches".

Hope it helps
John

[Geoff Wild]

Well - as far a QPK's go - that's fine and dandy if you use them - where I'm at we get custom patch bundles from HP (as we are a CSS shop) - so when vendors tell me I need QPK 05 - I get upset as they can't tell me exactly which specific patches they want me to have.

So, it's half a dozen one way or the other.


Rgds...Geoff

[dirk dierickx]

linux and solaris are modular unix systems, it shows in the patching which is much simpler and you can easily write a quick script to handle a lot of patching stuff - because there is a logic to be found!

hpux could be modular as well, but it sure as hell doesn't show in the patches, where one patch can patch several things, no way to find out by looking at a patch file what the hell it is supposed to do, a true nightmare, resembling microsoft patches for windows almost.

i believe the only reason they keep holding on to this method is to sell support for patch management on hpux systems.