This Wednesday at 10am PST/1pm EST (click here for your local timezone) Sun will be running the latest in it's Expert Exchange series, this time on using Live Upgrade to Upgrade and Patch your Solaris systems.
Keeping systems running is critical to your business. How can you
maximize system availability - and minimize risk - while keeping your
systems up to date with the latest patches and upgrades? Simple - put
Solaris Live Upgrade to work - and this Sun Expert Exchange Q&A
forum is a great way to get started.
So that's the official blurb, but what can Live Upgrade really do for you? One of the main complaints I hear from sysadmins is that patching is too difficult - primarily that it takes too long (often at 2am in the morning), and is too hard (and/or slow) to backout if there are any problems. If you're one of those Admins, then Live Upgrade is the answer.
What most people seem to miss is that Live Upgrade isn't just for upgrading between Solaris versions - it can also be used for patching. So instead of spending hours at 2am applying patches and rebooting your system - all during a multi-hour outage of course - you can carry out the patching to an "Alternate Boot Environment" anytime through the middle of the day, and then simply reboot the system to use the ABE during your outage window. If there's any problems with the patching, then it's simply another reboot to revert to the previous boot environment.
Yes, Live Upgrade does require a bit of planning beforehand, but the time it takes to configure a worthwhile Live Upgrade setup is generally far less than the time LU will save you in the long run.
So join us on Wednesday to find out how Live Upgrade can help you reduce your patching and upgrade outage windows. And don't let the marketing people on the panel fool you - the techies will be there as well to answer all of the hard questions! To register, go to http://sun.com/expertexchange and enter your details.