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Cisco Unity & Unity Connection Server Updates Wizard TOI. Josh Rose UCBU Engineering jprose@cisco.com May 17, 2007. What is the “Server Updates Wizard”?.
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Cisco Unity & Unity Connection Server Updates Wizard TOI • Josh Rose • UCBU Engineering • jprose@cisco.com • May 17, 2007
What is the “Server Updates Wizard”? • The SUW is essentially a cumulative bundle of Microsoft patches (and possibly other third-party updates), and the standalone CSA for Unity, that is provided with a graphical wizard based installer to guide the customer in bringing the host to a Cisco recommended patch level. • The SUW 1.0(x) has been in use for Cisco Unity Connection products for over a year. The SUW is moving to major version number 2.0(x) with adding support for the Unity enterprise products. • The SUW will ship with Unity product media on a CD, and will be provided as a monthly download on the Unity downloads page. • The SUW will be the recommended method of updating third-party software for supported Cisco Unity products.
Products Supported by the SUW Any of the following products running ENU builds of Windows 2000 Server, or Windows Server 2003, are supported: • Cisco Unity • Unity Voice Recognition • Unity Bridge • Unity Connection (1.x) • Unity Connection Voice Recognition (While the above products are supported we try to keep the tool usable on all ENU installs of Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003; to allow for expanding the products it supports).
Benefits of the SUW • It is has much better usability than the raw zip files of updates that we currently post for the Cisco Unity products. • It gives Cisco some ability to control the update process, make the process simpler, and safer. • Customers that use the tool will be using an update method that has been tested by UCBU quality assurance.
SUW Monthly Revision Process Every month the following process takes place: • When new security hotfixes are released (usually 2nd Tuesday of the month) the patches are evaluated to see which products they apply to. • The SUW is updated to remove deprecated patches, and have new patches included. • The QA is informed about the SUW revision and have one week to bless the SUW or report problems. Technical publications is also informed of added and removed software to update SUW documentation. • The SUW is posted on Cisco.com, and is available for customers to install.
Platform Validation Ran by the SUW The following are some of the validation and interrogation logic that the SUW will run on execution to try to avoid any failed updates: • Operating System version, service pack level, and build language are checked to ensure the SUW contains the appropriate updates for the platform. • To avoid partial installs, if a Cisco Security Agent is running on the host the SUW will not allow execution unless the CSA is service is stopped (SUW provides a dialog for this). The SUW will start the CSA again on exit. • If the SUW is being ran through Remote Desktop or Windows Terminal Services it will check the RDP settings to make sure they will not cause partial installation problems. If the settings need to be adjusted the SUW provides a dialog to correct them, and logs you out. • When patching logic is executed, for every patch, the SUW will check the registry to see if the patch has already been installed, if it has been it is skipped, if it has not been the patch is executed and the registry is interrogated to make sure the patch installed successfully; the results are printed to the status window.
SUW UI, Page 6: Exit and Reboot Reboot is only selected by default if any software was installed (if all updates were previously installed it would be unchecked).
Shortcomings: • The SUW does not perform a network check for new updates. The customer must download a new SUW revision to perform a later cumulative update. • The tool is not currently localized; however it is set up for future localization. • Logging is not apparent to the customer from the UI.
Near Future Improvements • The finish page should provide a link to log file. • Change the MS Updates Selection page. The choices might be unneeded since we can detect what is installed and what needs to be updated. • Considering adding some integrity checking into the tool itself. • Possibly adding online help to the tool.