Updates and Upgrades

Updates/Maintenance Pack/ Bundles/Fixes - A fix is an individual fix for one particular issue. Bundles are collection of fixes and one or more bundles constitutes a MP. MPs normally comes with two types - Cumulative and Delta. If you have not applied any patches, bundles or MPs (delta or cumulative), you need  to apply a cumulative MP. After applying a cumulative MP, subsequent Delta MP or bundle can be applied. After you last applied a cumulative or delta MP and since then if you have not applied any patch or bundle, you need to apply a delta MP. After that you can apply next delta MP or next bundle you need to keep applying subsequent bundles. Also, you need to apply a bundle if you are on MP and cannot wait for the next delta MP.

* Once you applied a bundle, you cannot apply any MPs further, you need to keep applying bundles as they are released.

The Peoplesoft Change Assistant (PSCA)- is a windows based standalone Java program that automates most of the steps of a peoplesoft update or upgrade process. CA utilizes all elements of EMF to monitor information and deploy the necessary updates throughout the system. An EMF (Environment Management Framework) is a collection of software elements that gather and publish information about peoplesoft installation, system configuration and update locations. It is used to obtain a snapshot of the configuration and setup information about the File servers, the webserver, the application servers and the process scheduler servers that comprises the peoplesoft system. Core components of an EMF are-

1) PSEMHUB,

2) PSEMAgent, and

3) PSEMViewer.

Configuring PSEMHUB - The hub is installed as part of standard PIA installation and supports both single server and multi-server installations. Primary configuration parameters for PSEMHUB are -

1) recrawlinterval,

2) revalidateinterval.

On a single server webserver domain configuration, the PSEMHUB starts within the PIA-

http://ip_address:80/PSEMHUB/hub

The hub registers the information published by the PSEMAgents. It monitors agents and handles the updates to configuration information.

 

PSEMAgent- Agents are installed on each of the physical machine in a PS environment. Its primary function is to crawl the server where it is installed to identify the locations/components and saves the search results to hard disk. On startup, if the agent detects missing metadata(if the file search-results.xml does not exist), it recrawls the hard disk locations. Agent publishes this information to the hub upon initial connection, and upon a recrawl or revalidate.

To configure PSEMAgent,  modify the file with below parameters- PS_HOME/PSEMAgent/environmentdata/config/configuration.properties

1) hubURL,

2) agentport - port that agent uses, default is 5283

3) pinginterval -  interval in milliseconds (default=10000) between two successive attempts to contact hub

4) windowsdrivetocrawl (c:|d:) or unixdrivetocrawl

 

To run an agent, run the batch script - PS_HOME/PSEMAgen/StartAgent.bat

 

Environment Management Viewer - PSEMViewer is a command line tool used to view data stored on PSEMHUB. This data about the environment is stored on hub in an xml file. It is executed on webserver from PS_HOME/PSEMViewer. To view this information, run a java program to connect to hub and retrieve the information in xml format-

- run PS_HOME/PSEMViewer/getEnvInfo.bat, and

- open html file PS_HOME/PSEMViewer/environmentdata/data/viewer.html

 

 

GUID uniquely identifies a particular peoplesoft system. Peoplesoft assigns a GUID to each PS installation which cannot be customized. If the GUID of an environment is not identified, the HUB creates a new environment representation.

When an application server is configured first and is booted, it assigns a GUID to database and stores it in PSOPTIONS table.

Steps to reset GUID-

1- Export PSOPTIONS,

2- UPDATE PSOPTIONS SET GUID=' ';

3- Delete all cache files - appserver, webserver and CA components.

4- Reconfigure the app server and boot.

 

Crawling is process of scanning hard disk for peoplesoft components. Recrawling includeds revalidating. Revalidate is the process of checking whether discovered information is still valid.


Setting up Change Assistant - CA runs only on windows workstations. Configure PSEMHUB and CA both on a Demo environment.

1- Confirm PATH variables, the first entry should be PS_HOME/bin/client/winx86 and PS_HOME/jre/bin

2- run PS_HOME/setup/PsCA/setup.exe

Once installed, run Change Assistant. CA steps are-
1) CA->Tools->Scan Configuration - CA scans the workstation for applications that it will use in order to apply updates, e.g. automatically finds your SQL tool (sqlplus.exe)
2) Define Environment Identification - CA uses GUID along with Environment Long Name and Environment Short Name to identify environment. You need to specify these correctly on PeopleTools->utilities->Administration->PeopleTools Options page.

3) Specify Change Assistant options - On CA, go to Tools->Options->Change Assistant and specify-
3.1 - Change Assistant Mode-
          1) Apply Application update
          2) Perform PeopleTools only Upgrade
          3) Perform Application Upgrade
          4) Create or Modify template
3.2 - Maximum Concurrent Processes - default is 1. specify max number of processes that can be executed concurrently on local machine.
3.3 - Directories -
1- PS_HOME location,
2- staging directory - CA stores update files here which are used during the Apply Updates process.
3- download - stores downloaded change packages (zipped files)
4- output directory - stores log files generated by update process.
4) Environment Management Option - specify server host name where PSEMHUB resides, server port which to connect to PSEMHUB and push Ping button. It verifies whether the URL is correct and also returns the status - "Server is off" or "Server is On".
5) Validate Change Assistant settings - Tools->Validate->Start Validation. CA validates the environment settings by 1) locating SQL tool, 2) testing/pinging PSEMHUB and ensuring that CA can communicate with it, 3) discovering HUB environments. 4) pinging Metalink IB gateway URL ensuring CA can communicate with it.

 

Change Assistant Template- a CA Template comes with the change package and when doing upgrade, it is downloaded from oracle site for specific upgrade path. It comprises of all possible steps to apply an update or upgrade. CA builds a job tailored to your environment using template and environment configuration.

 

Discovering and Downloading Updates - Tools->Upload Environment -uploads           1) Application data - LICENSE_CODE, RELEASELABLE, TOOLSREL, LANGUAGE_CD etc. 2) Specific Environment data - GUID, LONGNAME, SHORTNAME, SYSTEMTYPE etc.
3) Server data - SIZE (number of servers), OS, SERVERNAME etc.

This information is bundled in a xml file and it is uploaded to Oracle to discover the applicable updates. 

Clearing EMF Cache -
1) Close CA, stop all agents and stop PSEMHUB.
2) Delete cache files from CA, PSEMAgent and PSEMViewer -
delete files in these directories-
    PersistentStorage,
    ScratchPad,
    transactions, (if this exists)
    data
3) For CA and PSEMAgent, delete search-results.xml in data directory.
4) For PSEMHUB, delete files in these directories-
    PersistentStorage,
    ScratchPad,
    transactions, (if this exists)
    * delete all objects including subdirectories in data, not the data directory.5) Restart PSEMHUB, restart all PSEMAgents, restart CA.

 

CA step status' -
1- Run,
2- Stop- indicates this may be a manual step to perform
3- Restart - once a step is failed, you correct the problem and you retsrat the step from the point of failure.
4- Processing - indicates the step is running
5- Failure - indicates a failure, resolve error before continuing (e.g. a SQL/datamover script failed or a project copy failed.
6- Warning -
7- Complete.

 

PeopleSoft Upgrade