We have SAS in at a client site doing a SAS 9.2 Grid install at the moment.
While having a chat they mentioned that there is a new hotfix management tool available for SAS 9.2, and sure enough there is details on the SAS Support site here (thanks Ron!)
What the support says about it is:
“SAS92HFADD creates a customized hot fix report listing hot fixes available for any SAS 9.2 deployment and generates scripts that will automate the download and installation of hot fixes.”
More information and instructions for using the tool are available in the SAS92HFADD Usage Guide and on the SAS92HFADD download page.
But as it was explained to me what the process isis:
1) Run a tool that exports a txt file with your current SAS products, hotfix levels etc
2) Run the analysis tool that looks at your current install txt file and the latests hotfixes and works out the delta’s
3) Creates a txt file of the missing hotfixes
4) You use this txt file and it automatically downloads the hotfixes you can exclude the ones you don’t want downloaded)
5) Run the update script that applies the hotfixes.
The cool thing (well one of them) is if your SAS server can’t access the internet you can still use the txt file to run the compare and hotfix download from your PC!
So it looks like hotfixing is getting easier, about time!
Well it is defiantly a step forward but not perfect.
For some reason the documentation is written in a 70′s stile (It takes some time to find and then to understand). In any case it has a look and feel of a quick fix – a patch – a work around.
I am happy there is a solution that checks what is my installation update gap but I would like it to be fully automatic. All this faffing about with coping files around is embarrassing.
Eli
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Fred Janssen, David Moors. David Moors said: RT @Technolero: #SAS 9.2 Hot Fix Analysis, Download and Deployment Tool – Making hotfixes easy peazy! http://bit.ly/i4Vzzg [...]
Yay, let me know how it goes and if it works as well as we hope…
Does it update the depot or would a new client say need the install performed from the depot and then the hotfixes applied?