[sims] Solus 3 - Slow upgrade deployment after timeout

[Gibson335]

So following advice we scheduled deployment of the Spring upgrade overnight and made sure our workstations were on. These were fine for users when they ran SIMS the following day. However, most of our client devices are laptops, so their deployment of the upgrade began when the laptops logged in the following day. Or should I say, began the process, because what they did was sit in a queue. It was so slow we spoke to our SIMS support people and they said it was simply due to network overload because of so many doing it at the same time. Hmm, perhaps. Yet today, when around half a dozen who were not in on that following day logged in, the queue followed by notice of deployment was anywhere between 30 and 55 minutes. This is surely unaccptable.

 

Anyone had exactly the same thing and happen to know of a fix? There's no way that we can find in Solus3 to re-push the upgrade to machines, and all the green update button on the Solus3 taskbar does is say the process has started.

 

First attempt at using Solus agents - first nightmare.

[minimoo]

How many PC's ? Do you have the agents on the pc i.e. is the problem just the upgrade, or is it also getting the agents on ? as you mention you are a new user

 

If all the agents are on and showing up:

 

a) Settings -> Solus 3 -> Deployments. There's an option titled "concurrent downloads". I increased this to 25 many years ago when talking to capita support - not sure if this is still higher then the default, but that's one thing to speak to your sims support people about potentially.

 

b) On the same screen (And be careful not to tick the 'auto deploy' options - there's an autodownload - we've got that ticked for between 00:00 and 23:59 on both the updates and the deployments tab.

 

I don't want sims to auto install, however if it can stage the files to the PC's before I kick off a deployment, that's a different matter.

 

It can be quite time consuming for the actual deployment in the software to run (i.e. when you actually click deploy for the first time), however for the most part you should find it does work a lot more smoothly than it used it - i.e. client should try and kick off an install when loaded if out of date etc now.

 

Have a look at the local agent logs (in the solus3 directory) on the agent, and see if it's indicating it's downloaded/downloading or what in first instance.

[Gibson335]

How many PC's ? Do you have the agents on the pc i.e. is the problem just the upgrade, or is it also getting the agents on ? as you mention you are a new user

 

If all the agents are on and showing up:

 

a) Settings -> Solus 3 -> Deployments. There's an option titled "concurrent downloads". I increased this to 25 many years ago when talking to capita support - not sure if this is still higher then the default, but that's one thing to speak to your sims support people about potentially.

 

b) On the same screen (And be careful not to tick the 'auto deploy' options - there's an autodownload - we've got that ticked for between 00:00 and 23:59 on both the updates and the deployments tab.

 

I don't want sims to auto install, however if it can stage the files to the PC's before I kick off a deployment, that's a different matter.

 

It can be quite time consuming for the actual deployment in the software to run (i.e. when you actually click deploy for the first time), however for the most part you should find it does work a lot more smoothly than it used it - i.e. client should try and kick off an install when loaded if out of date etc now.

 

Have a look at the local agent logs (in the solus3 directory) on the agent, and see if it's indicating it's downloaded/downloading or what in first instance.

 

So, it's around about 120-130 laptops, and yes they all have their agents on. I'll check out a) and we have the same b) setting. Because the deployment was scheduled for overnight, the stations we left on were fine. You raise an interesting point about when an install kicks off, because we were initially told it was when the user ran SIMS but were later told it's when the user logs on...presumably when Solus does its healthcheck every few minutes when it sees an agent online but out of date that's when it starts...but literally from logging on to being installed was taking as long as 30+ minutes on several. Apparently Solus runs the check in a certain order, but we can push stations up the list, so that will be something to try in tests.

 

I'll check out the logs you mention. And thanks for the comprehensive response.

[minimoo]

Also see what time you have set for "Agent heartbeat". We have ours currently set to 13 minutes - but I believe that's because I increased it back in 2011 with the solus BA due to hitting tolerance issues - I think the default is 5 minutes and if so, should be left at that

 

you should find that the sims.net shortcut goes to simsload - and I think one of the new features in 3.10.88 (latest solus released a month ago) was to make simsload kick off a solus3 update if someone tries to run sims and it's out of date.

 

On a heartbeat, solus will ty and do a discovery of fms, sims then discover, but those heart beat checks on the agent take <1 second to complete here, so I wouldn't worry too much about the order personally

 

c:\program files\solus 3\systemlog.txt (and to a lesser extent)c:\programdata\capita\solus3\deployments\ is where solus logs on local pc. There's server logs in similar locations also, however as it's working but slower you'd hope - i'd start off with the agent systemlog.txt

[Gibson335]

Also see what time you have set for "Agent heartbeat". We have ours currently set to 13 minutes - but I believe that's because I increased it back in 2011 with the solus BA due to hitting tolerance issues - I think the default is 5 minutes and if so, should be left at that

 

you should find that the sims.net shortcut goes to simsload - and I think one of the new features in 3.10.88 (latest solus released a month ago) was to make simsload kick off a solus3 update if someone tries to run sims and it's out of date.

 

On a heartbeat, solus will ty and do a discovery of fms, sims then discover, but those heart beat checks on the agent take <1 second to complete here, so I wouldn't worry too much about the order personally

 

c:\program files\solus 3\systemlog.txt (and to a lesser extent)c:\programdata\capita\solus3\deployments\ is where solus logs on local pc. There's server logs in similar locations also, however as it's working but slower you'd hope - i'd start off with the agent systemlog.txt

 

Our SIMS Support people set up Solus, and on the Deployments they set it up for 11.30 to 13.30 at 20 concurrent downloads.

 

I've never been quite sure of the significance of the deployment timing as to when it becomes effective?