Managing Software Changes (G06.25+, H06.03+, J06.03+)
Managing Software Changes—427169-005
3-1
3 Evaluating Software Changes
This section describes the research procedures and tools you can use to help you
evaluate the various types of software change notifications:
•
Determining Which SPRs to Install
•
Evaluating Outage Prevention Notifications
•
Evaluating SPR Introduction Documents (SIDs)
•
Evaluating Requisite SPRs
•
Keeping Track of SPRs
•
Using Software Change Research Tools
You will use these procedures and tools during the tasks described in Section 4,
Software Installation Planning and Section 5, Managing Changes Between Release
Version Updates.
Determining Which SPRs to Install
•
Research both OPNs and SIDs (SPR Introduction Documents) to identify SPRs
you should consider installing to avoid the risk of an outage.
Not all outage possibilities result in an Outage Prevention Notification (OPN)
Hotstuff message. OPNs are used to notify customers of defects that HP believes
are likely to cause multiple unrelated outages. However, just because there is no
OPN does not mean there is no outage possibility. It simply means that HP
believes the outage is unlikely to affect multiple customers.
SIDs can also draw attention to fixes to defects that conceivably could cause an
outage. This alert section is sometimes present in the SIDs that you receive
through ExpressNotice:
Consider using this SPR to avoid possible outage
You must, therefore, carefully analyze both OPNs and SIDs to identify relevant
SPRs, rather than rely entirely on OPNs as your only source of guidance.
•
Evaluate whether the fixes and features in an SPR are relevant to your computing
environment.
•
Review softdocs or SPR Notes (available in the NonStop Technical Library (NTL))
only for detailed information.
Note. Starting with G06.28 and H06.05, SIDs are only created and published to Scout for
NonStop Servers for Exception Delivery SPRs, which include Time Critical Fixes (TCFs)
and Early Product Deliveries (EPDs). SIDs for Planned Product Maintenance (PPM) SPRs
are no longer produced for G-series and H-series RVU-based SPRs or for Independent
Product SPRs. See Support Note S06013 for details.
Note. Starting with June 2006, SPR Notes are no longer created. Previously published
SPR Notes remain available in NTL.