Plan for Patching RHEL VM server

ITIL Change "Implementation" Plan for patching a RHEL Virtual Machine server v1.2

Purpose:

• To convince the respective business stakeholders ( Change Management Board, Technical reviewers \ approvers ) that the change is going to be successful.

Environmental Information and other required information \ requirements:

(1) FQDN of Server = rhelv7.net.local;

(2) RHEL OS version = 7.x;

(3) Server needs to be a virtual machine, not a physical machine;

(4) vMware vCentre cluster “vcentrecluster1.net.local”;

(5) "Server Automation" system is fully functional for RHEL server;

(6) Data Centre Location = Kakadu National Park

(7) Hosted Application \ Database details = "Melbourne Cup Trifecta Predictor"

(8) Application \ Database support team contact = "SpongeBob Square Pants, Bark Hut Pub, Arnhem Highway, Arnhem Land";

(9) Server Automation OS patching tool procedure ( hopefully a wrapper script to YUM );

(10) Server automation system has local yum repos of the respective RHEL updates;

(11) Monitoring system details = URL, Credentials to authenticate, Procedure to temporarily disable server health checks;

(12) RHEL OS Health Check list, will be used for OS "Verification" testing;

(13) Application \ Database Health Check list, will be used for Application \ Database "Verification" testing;

(14) Analysis needs to be completed to identify packages that are not part of the standard RHEL repo ( For example, any vMware packages or application \ database specific packages ). Analyse the dependencies that exist between the non-RHEL packages and the RHEL packages. Here the "Development" environment is the perfect place to "Suck it and See".

Implementation Plan:

(1) Application \ Database support team members to shutdown Application \ Database hosted components;

(2) Disable Monitoring system checks for the RHEL server for the duration of the change ( If time permits, start up the RHEL server and complete OS \ App \ DB PVT. To confirm the server's "Running" configuration is the "Persistent" configuration );

(3) Shutdown RHEL server;

(4) Take a VM snapshot of the RHEL server ( Ideally, the snapshot is restored and tested );

(5) Startup RHEL server;

(6) Install RHEL OS updates using Server Automation tools;

(7) Reboot server;

(8) Perform RHEL OS "Verification" testing;

(9) Startup App \ DB;

(10) Perform App \ DB "Verification" testing;

(11) Enable Monitoring checks for server;

(12) 24\48\72 hours later delete VM snapshot ( Depending on how much free capacity exists on the ESX datastore, hopefully bucket loads for a "Production" environment ).

BackOut Plan:

(1) Shutdown RHEL server;

(2) Restore VM from snapshot;

(3) Startup server;

(4) Perform RHEL OS "Verification" testing;

(5) Startup Application \ Database;

(6) Perform Application \ Database "Verification" testing.