[sims] SOLUS3 April 2012 Release Available

[vikpaw]

SOLUS 3 (April) is unleashed.

SOLUS3 April Release - Now Available

 

SOLUS3 April Release (3.4.118) - Now Available

 

I’m pleased to announce the April release of SOLUS3 (SOLUS3.4.118)

 

The scope of enhancements included in this release of SOLUS3 are:

 

• Improved management of Downloads including
  
  • the ability to select and queue multiple updates for download
    
  • functionality to enable stopped downloads (either due to a failure or by user choice) to be resumed.
    
  • Greater information on the type and location of the download will be visible
    
  • A link to the browser enabling you to down load the file outside of SOLUS3 and then import it.
    

   

  [*]The From date in the Release date filter on the Manage updates page will now default to four months before the current date. This reduces the number of visible updates on the Manage updates page making finding recent updates easier.

  [*]Contextual Help will now be available from the help button at the top of the screen.

  [*]When an upgrade is scheduled, a warning will be given if the upgrade credentials entered are invalid.

  [*]The order of the FMS targets has been altered to Server, Database and then Application.

  [*]No user defined configuration settings will be overwritten by the upgrade. (previously some specific settings, such as port numbers were.

  [*]When a release is de-authorised, any sites that have already rolled out the release will now be able to complete the upgrade for any workstations that have not yet carried out the upgrade.

  [*]The auto deployment setup option for Solus3 will now be available.

  [*]Discover has been enabled to be auto deployable from the SIMS Summer 2012 release.

  [*]The agent version is now displayed on agent notifier screen

  [*]An override button enabling users to override the 2 minute wait before an upgrade takes place on their machines is now present on the agent notifier screen.

 

Full details on the new release and its enhancements can be found in the release note (resource Id 19375 in SupportNet).

 

Existing SOLUS3 customers

The release is now available for you to download and apply in SOLUS3 as

Solus3 – 3.4.118.0

 

Customers new to SOLUS3

Before commencing the installation of SOLUS3 we would encourage you to read the Installation and Configuration Guide which can be found in SupportNet as resource ID: 19374

Then please use the following location to download the SOLUS3 April release (3.4.118) from and then follow the installation instructions.

File location: Check on SupportNet

Password: AsIf

 

Supporting Documentation

We would recommend reading the following documentation on SOLUS3 which can be found in SupportNet under the following Resource ids:

SOLUS System Administrators Handbook – 19373

SOLUS Installation and Configuration Guide – 19374

 

Regards,

Jonathan wood

[matt40k]

This bit is key if you're setting up a new SOLUS3 site:

The From date in the Release date filter on the Manage updates page will now default to four months before the current date. This reduces the number of visible updates on the Manage updates page making finding recent updates easier.

 

Basically it'll filter out some of the pre-req you need. You'll be ok if you use the auto-deploy, otherwise you'll have to remember to change the start date. No biggy, just something to watch out for. The deploy now is a nice feature.

[ianswalker]

Solus 3.4.118 seems to suffer the same problem as 3.4.107 in that it fails to update the deployment service with a Windows errror. 'this is a 64-bit machine Please use the 64-bit installer'. This is caused by additional entries in the database which tells the installer that a 32-bit version is required. It is getting this wrong. How about a fix for this soon?

[matt40k]

Solus 3.4.118 seems to suffer the same problem as 3.4.107 in that it fails to update the deployment service with a Windows errror. 'this is a 64-bit machine Please use the 64-bit installer'. This is caused by additional entries in the database which tells the installer that a 32-bit version is required. It is getting this wrong. How about a fix for this soon?

 

If you could tell me\them how to replicate it, then they'll fix it. The problem is they use the Microsoft API to identify the OS and architecture and at some point it's thought you were on a 32bit server, now they way they do it is the way Microsoft tell people to do it and they aren't the first people to use it. I've done about 50+ S3 installs which covers Windows Server 2003, 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2 and I've not had that problem and we've gone from the very first release upto .118, either upgrading or new installs so it would indicate a Windows issue - not that helps or a good thing to hear.

 

What's the OS, was it upgraded from a previous version of Windows, what version of s3 did you first install?

[ianswalker]

All the affected servers (14 of them) are Windows 2003R2 x64. They are all clean installs (no upgrades from previous versions). Solus 3 was installed at version 3.4.64 The next Solus upgrade was OK but the next Solus upgrade failed at the deployment service stage with the upgrade trying to use the x86 rather than x64 installer. Capita fixed this by grubbing about in the solus deployment database and removing some data. The update then proceeded correctly. The same thing has now happened with 3.4.188 so the problem has not been fixed. Capita have all the logs to know what is going on. I have other servers which are Windows 2003 R2 x64 which do not display this problem. Also others which are windows Server 2003R2 x32 which are OK . The Windows servers which are 2008 (x86 and x64) and 2008R2 are all behaving OK.

 

The problem seems to be what is getting put into the Solus database.

[matt40k]

Not tried x64 - Windows Server 2003 R2. Will see if I can get a copy to try.

[ianswalker]

It is now getting more complicated. Having tried a few more servers one has the problem for the first time having successfully upgraded Solus3 from 3.4.64 to 107

it now fails on 118. Another that had the problem on 107 is OK on 118. This apparently randon behaviour is very puzzling

[Cache]

Have I imagined these points, or is it just because it's a solus update?

 

1. I thought that you could redploy Solus 3 updates as well as SIMS/Discover etc? I have no redploy options on the solus update.

 

2. The Offline machines no longer mark themselves as Successful/failed once they came online, I have to sift through the deployment log to see if any failed or any haven't deployed.

 

3. It is now completely impossible to sort the deployment log, every heading now produces an object error.

[matt40k]

1. I thought that you could redploy Solus 3 updates as well as SIMS/Discover etc? I have no redploy options on the solus update.

 

 

Don't think you can redeploy S3... might be wrong...

 

3. It is now completely impossible to sort the deployment log, every heading now produces an object error.

 

I thought this broke in an earlier build? I've logged it anyway. The deployment status panel is basically completely useless, best way I've found is go into reports, then export to excel - I've had to export it, save it, then load it up on my machine as servers don't have excel. Problem is, currently, S3 won't cope with the fact you'll have updated a few manually so I have to run a SQL script to get it to re-check all the workstations versions so S3 is all correct.

[Cache]

Called Capita today, the guy I spoke to was sure also that you could in 103 redeploy Solus3 but wasn't 100%.

 

Restarting the Deployment Service on the server seems to have sorted the sorting of the deployment detail screen on our server though which is great news.

 

Got a call open about the redeploy and status screen now though - interesting though the last couple of machines that hadn't updated before the Deployment Service was restarted when they came on line still deployed the update, so that's another added benefit atleast!

[ianswalker]

Capita have now fixed our servers which had the x86 x64 deployment service installer problem. They spent a long time editing the contents of the Solus3 deployment Service database. Why it gets all this incorrect data inserted into it has yet to be explained