To Patch or not to Patch SharePoint Charmaine Malan 3 October 2015 Johannesburg, SA.

To Patch or not to Patch SharePointCharmaine Malan3 October 2015Johannesburg, SA

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I have been working in the IT Industry for

18 years. I was asked to sort out a failed

SharePoint installation and I fell

in love with the product and the rest

is history as they say. .

@loeloe69

https://za.linkedin.com/pub/charmaine-malan/1/35a/a83

About Me

This session is about how to Patch your SharePoint servers and why it goes wrong and ways to fix it.

Session Info

Session Index

• Why Patch the SharePoint Farm• Patching vs Upgrading• Types of Patches• So how do I Patch the Farm? • What if the Update failed?• SharePoint Updates FAQ’s• Questions

Why Patch the Sharepoint Farm?• Updates and enhancements to certain SharePoint services and features

• Issues on your current Farm that can be resolved with a Patch (hotfix)

• Turn off Auto updating in Windows and rather manually download the patches you need

Patching vs Upgrading

• Upgrading = version-to-version or V2V• Upgrade from different versions ex.

SP2010 to SP2013• Patching = build-to-build or B2B• Within the same product version ex RTM

to SP1

Types of Patches

Types of Patches

• SharePoint SP, Uber, CU, PU• Office Web App• AppFabric• Workflow Manager

Types of Patches - continued

• SP = Service Pack (thoroughly tested before distribution)

• “Uber” packages similar to “mini service Pack”

• CU = Cumulative Updates (sometimes prerequisite for future PU’s and CU’s)

• PU = Public Updates (includes security updates as well)

How do I Update SharePoint?

• Determine the SP Build level of the Farm using this Script: (get-spfarm).buildversion

• Download the Update files from Microsoft or http://www.toddklindt.com

• Extract the files and then the process starts:-Update Binaries-Upgrade Databases-Complete upgrade

http://www.toddklindt.com/

How do I Update SharePoint? – cont.

• Before you run the Update STOP the following Services

-SP Timer Service (SPTimerV4)-SP Server Search 15 (OSearch15)-SP Search Host Controller

(SPSeachHostController)

Scenario: 2 Svr Farm S1 & S2

• Patching Stage – all Servers still online

Scenario: 2 Svr Farm S1 & S2 cont.

• Start patching Server 1 binaries• S1 goes offline and S2 still continues

with requests


• If you did not STOP the before mentioned Services manually, running the Patch will automatically do it was well

• It will give and an outage on S1


• S1 will finish patching and Reboot afterwards


• Upgrade Databases – Total Outage on Farm!• Farm has to be Offline to upgrade the

databases• Start with Server1 - 2 options to do this:• Sharepoint Configuration Wizard or

Powershell (psconfig)• If you haven’t Patched all the Farm servers

when doing the upgrade you will get this error:


• Patch Server2 again, because the Patching did not work the 1st time

• If Done, Re-apply the Upgrade process (psconfig/Config Wizard)


• Upgrading of Databases - happens here in the background on a TIMER-JOB


• Upgrading the Databases using PSConfig

- PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

Scenario: 2 Svr Farm S1 & S2 cont.• Upgrade Completed -

Successful


• Farm Availability Timeline• Patching without Downtime is possible

but you need another Farm on standby to cover when the Main Farm drops off the Network


• Finalizing the Upgrade Process• Verify that the Upgrade has completed• Open Central Admin > Upgrade and

Migration > Check Upgrade Status• Server Status should show “Succeeded”

for latest entry


• Also click on Check product and patch installation status to Verify

What if the Upgrade Failed?

• The SP Farm will be in a “half-baked state of doom”

• All blockers needs to be fixed and the upgrade retried on all Servers

Reasons for a Failed Update

• Binary Installation Failure (version not compatible, install error)

• PSConfig/SP Config Wizard Critical Error• Farm/Databases upgrade error

Reasons for a Failed Update cont.

• Binary installation Failure have various errors:

-“the expected version of the product was not found”

-“the detection failed. This can be due to corrupted installation base”

-“an error occurred while running detection”

• To troubleshoot these errors download the ROIScan.vbs script from

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh221405 and Review the report, and INSTALL the “missing patches” in order to re-update the Farm

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh221405

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh221405

Reasons for a Failed Update cont.

• PSConfig/SharePoint Config Wizard Critical Error:

- Install Application Content – MissingMethodExeption

- SPAdmin service not starting use this fix: “psconfig.exe –cmd services –install”

- Databases upgrade Failures – use PSCDiagnostics log-file, could be that Databases might be read only – disconnect DB and rerun PSConfig/Wizard

SharePoint Updates FAQ’s• SP2013 Update installations are SLOWWWW???• Why is the Upgrade process so Complicated?• How can I make the Farm Patching Easier?

SharePoint Updates FAQ’s cont.

• SP2013 Update installations are so SLOWWWW???

- It is actually updating 10-20 products at the same time

- Yes, the Binary update can take 5 hours – Good explanation at this link and a SCRIPT to run that reduces the time (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/russmax/archive/2013/04/01/why-sharepoint-2013-cumulative-update-takes-5-hours-to-install.aspx)

- AppFabric and Search takes up a lot of CPU time

- Threads for Windows installer gets put in a longer line for processing

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/russmax/archive/2013/04/01/why-sharepoint-2013-cumulative-update-takes-5-hours-to-install.aspx





• Why is the Upgrade process so Complicated?

- SharePoint is a complicated system that is actually a Web-platform, database engine of sorts, an apps framework, a service engine (search) and lots more.

- It has a lot of moving parts

- Complicated things are not easy to update


• How can I make the Farm Patching Easier?

- Follow Microsoft best practises

- Disconnecting Content Databases Pre-Upgrade

- Patch SP without any downtime by having another Farm on hand

- Lots of patience

- Do proper Planning before Patching/Upgrading

Questions

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To Patch or not to Patch SharePoint Charmaine Malan 3 October 2015 Johannesburg, SA.

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