May 16, 2011 at 1:20 am
Hi All,
I'm in the process of upgrading a lot of our SQL 2005 servers to SP4 (yes I know its been out for a few months!). I was wondering if some of the other DBAs here can give me some advise on 'patching orders' of certain servers.
We have some production servers that utilize logshipping as a DR capability - is it suggested to patch the logshipped servers before the live production servers, or vice versa?
We also have some replication servers as well - I know that we need to patch in order of distributor, then publisher, then subscriber - the only problem I have is that some of our servers serve as both or all 3 roles! Any thoughts as to a 'patching order' for these?
I appreciate everyones input!
May 16, 2011 at 9:21 am
Always go downstream first, since the update could change the db version. Things are usually backwards compatible, not forward. So log shipped receivers first, then live servers.
Replication: Do you mean some servers are pub/dist/sub for different articles/topoligies? I think if that's the case, you still aim for distributors first, meaning those servers are included. Could it break replication? Possibly.
Likely, however, replication will be down until you get the servers patched if there is an issue. Replication should pick up once servers are patched, but two things to pay attention to:
1. Make sure you have all replication scripted so you can recreate the topology is things go sideways.
2. make sure you have plenty of log space. If replication ends up being stopped, transaction logs will not clear, so if it takes you time to patch all servers, you could have log growth issues. Pay attention to this and plan for it based on the time it takes you to patch all the servers
June 23, 2011 at 7:36 am
Hi All,
We followed "Distributor – Publisher – Subscriber" order when applying SQL 2005-SP3. Do we still need to follow the same route with SP4 too? or this bug/flaw is fixed by Microsoft?
Please share your experiences or thoughts on this.
Thanks in advance.
Anil Danta
June 23, 2011 at 8:26 am
It's not a bug or a flaw, it's logical order. the distributor is the highest in the chain, and it requires upgrading first. If the publisher goes first, the version of the db might not be readable by the distributor since it's uplevel.
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply