I'm delighted to announce that the Solaris 10 10/09 (Update 8) Patch Bundle is now available for download by customers with a Solaris support contract.
Each Solaris Update Patch Bundle contains the equivalent set of patches which are pre-applied into the corresponding Solaris Update release image.
It is provided to enable customers who cannot upgrade for whatever reason to be able to patch systems up to the same patch level as the Update release.
Each Solaris Update is intensely tested as a unit by myriad QA teams across Sun. Therefore, Solaris Updates and their corresponding Solaris Update Patch Bundles provide good quality "baselines" on which customers can standardize their deployments.
Standardizing deployments on such "baselines" also provides customers with a "safety in numbers" effect, as any pervasive issues are likely to be found and fixed quickly, so each customer benefits from the experience of others.
The Solaris Update Patch Bundle brings all existing packages up to the same software level as the Update release. Any features which are entirely contained in pre-existing packages, such as Zones and ZFS functionality, are entirely available in patches and hence applying the Solaris Update Patch Bundle brings them up to the same functional level as the Update release.
However, installing the Patch Bundle is not completely equivalent to upgrading to the corresponding Solaris Update as the Patch Bundles do not include any new packages introduced in the Solaris Update release image. Therefore, any new features which are dependent upon new packages will not be available by applying the Solaris Update Patch Bundle.
Here's a summary of the new packages in Solaris 10 10/09 (Update 8) which are not available in the Solaris 10 10/09 Patch Bundle:
SUNWhxge: SUN 10Gb hxge Ethernet Network Adapter Driver
SUNWio-tools: Administrative tools to modify the pci/pcie fabric
SUNWmrsas: LSI MegaRAID SAS2.0 HBA driver
SUNWpixman: Pixman Library
SUNWntp4r: NTPv4 (root)
SUNWntp4u: NTPv4 (usr)
SUNWntp4S: NTPv4 (source)
SUNWmptsas: LSI MPT SAS2.0 HBA driver
Please remember to apply the latest Sun Alert Cluster on top of the Solaris Update Patch Bundle in order to get all Solaris OS security, data corruption, and system availability fixes released since the final build of the Update release.
Please see previous blog entries for further details on Solaris Update Patch Bundles.
Top Tip: If you are installing in a zones environment, make sure you have the latest patch utility patches installed and Zones Parallel Patching configured before you apply a Solaris Update Patch Bundle as Zones Parallel Patching will improve non-global zone patching performance by ~300%. See this blog entry for details.
BTW: There is no need to take any action to enable "Turbo-Charging SVR4 Package Installation" as the necessary patches are installed early on when installing the Solaris 10 10/09 Patch Bundle and will be automatically enabled for subsequent patch application when the bundle is applied to the live boot environment. While "Turbo-Charging" has little affect when installing most patches, it does significantly speed up the application of a small number of older patches with non-optimized deletes file processing install scripts and so does speed up the Solaris 10 10/09 Patch Bundle installation somewhat.
Best Wishes,
Gerry.