Patch App

Patch Application Strategies

During a Major Release Upgrade

Youll need a stategy for applying all those patches

B Y

M E L I S S A

K A N T O R

atch application can be an especially

daunting task during a major release upgrade.
There are various types of patches that can be
applied at different times throughout the
upgrade process, and several different kinds of
application strategies to choose from.

PeopleSoft patches fall into one of four main

categories. They are: Tools Patches,
Application Patches, Third Party Patches, and
Custom Patches. Tools Patches provide fixes or
enhancements to the underlying structure of
the PeopleSoft application (e.g. Application
Designer, Query, Tree Manager, Application
Server, etc.). Application Patches provide fixes
or enhancements to the business application
itself (report changes, program modifications,
table/view changes, business process changes,
etc.). In addition there are non-PeopleSoft
patches for various components of the
architecture such as the database or server
software. These non-PeopleSoft patches are
called Third Party Patches. Many times these
patches are posted directly on Customer
Connection, other times not. Each of these
patch categories needs to be reviewed for
applicable patches prior to the upgrade
process.
The final category of patches is Custom Patches.
These are patches developed by the upgrade
team to meet site-specific criteria. The most
common examples of these are for data
conversion, custom or modified table

structures, or when adding custom indexes.

(Note that adding and removing various
custom indexes is a great way to improve data
conversion performance.)
The types of patches applied during an upgrade
are: Required for Installation, Required for
Upgrade, and Post Upgrade Patches.
Required for Installation patches are those
listed on PeopleSofts Customer Connection
that need to be applied directly to the installed
demo database for the new version. They
include: Tools Patches, Application Patches, and
Third Party Patches. Usually, they are very
important patches necessary for the successful
operation of the system out of the box, such as
security fixes or install script enhancements. In

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addition, any available PeopleTools bundles
should be applied during installation to bring
the tools level up to the highest supported
release. Required for Upgrade Patches are
those listed on PeoplesSofts Customer
Connection that are necessary for a successful
upgrade and may need to be applied at various
times during the upgrade process. They include
Tools Patches, Application Patches, and very
rarely, Third Party Patches. Some may need to
be applied during installation of the demo
database, while others can be applied right after
the tools upgrade (before data conversion), and
some at the end of the upgrade. The most
common type of 'Required for Upgrade' Patches
are those that fix data conversion programs.
The Required for Installation and Required for
Upgrade Patches tend to be the most
straightforward to apply.
Post Upgrade Patches include all of the
Application Patches that have come out since
PeopleSoft first released the new version (e.g.
the one being upgraded to). These may include
stand-alone patches, fixes, bundles, and/or
service packs. This is by far the most laborious
section of patch application. All necessary
patches for the organizations licensed modules
need to be downloaded from PeopleSofts

Figure 1:
Basic Major Release
Upgrade Flow.

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Customer Connection and ordered by date

released. Next, each patch should be analyzed
individually and checked for prerequisites as
well as post-requisites. Once all referenced
patches are downloaded, they need to be
incorporated into the list of patches, and the
list needs to be appropriately reordered to
determine the correct application sequence.
Before getting into too much detail around
patch application strategy, it is necessary to
have a basic understanding of how a major
release upgrade works (see Figure 1). First, the
new version of PeopleSoft, including the demo
database, is installed (1). Second, a copy of the
current production database is created (2). The
new versions demo database is then used to
upgrade the copy of production (3). The tools
are upgraded first which is then followed by the
application upgrade. This is called the initial
pass stage of the upgrade. The next stage of the
upgrade is known as the move to production
stage (and test move to production), and
requires a slightly different upgrade technique.
A new copy of the current production database
is created (4). This time the already upgraded
copy of production from the initial pass is used
to upgrade the new copy of production and
does not require the new versions demo