spond's blog

Wowee what a blast!

It's cold, and it's dark here in Provo

I can't help but smile - for "zmd-messages", my spellchecker offers "madness" :)

OK, our hands are up - mistakes were made, the guilty have been punished, etc...

Those of you who are running ZENworks 10 Configuration Management, especially if you are on the first web download version, 10.0.0, probably have noticed that we made an update to 10.0.1 (the so-called "Media Release", the one you can now download from http://download.novell.com) available via the System Update function... and then we took away the System Update version. Some of you who managed to download the System Update (oh all right, many of you) have probably experienced certain "issues" with server performance since the end of Daylight Saving Time. Well the two things are related, of course. Under certain circumstances, namely if time is set into the past as happened at the end of October in the most of the United States, it triggered a bug - this made the System Update queue go into a mode that couldn't have been more manic if it had just come from the rest room sniffing very strangely). If you're suffering from this, then why didn't you come to the Support Forums - we'd have told you how to fix it! If you didn't get to see this, then take a look at TID 3389520 where we have offered a very quick and easy workaround.

Meanwhile, we're working on fixing this issue so that it won't reoccur, and trying to get this update re-published as soon as possible: I don't have a date at this time, "when it's ready" I think is the watchword.. I'll post here as soon as I have any more news.

We've just released ZENworks 7 SP1 IR1 and it's available from http://download.novell.com - these patches are currently in beta, and if all goes well, they will move out of beta status in a week or two. If you download them you'll be sent an email inviting you to give your opinion of the patch, and thus can help when it's time to decide if the patch is good enough to move from beta status.

So why "Interim Release", why not another "Hot Patch" ? The resources needed for testing a set of patches varies considerably from Hot Patch to Interim Release, and from Interim Release to Support Pack. If we only put out Interim Releases or Support Packs, we'd only be able to release patches on a much more infrequent basis. It's always a balancing act between getting patches out in a timely fashion, and putting them through a rigorous testing regime. I know we don't always get it right, but we try to!

We look forward to getting your feedback on this set of patches...

I'm leaving the UK for two weeks vacation in Mexico, at a cookery school in Oaxaca now, so look after yourselves, and I look forward to seeing your comments when I get back.

Apologies for the late notice here of Hot Patch 6 for ZEN7 SP1 - I was in Provo for two weeks' training on the new ZENworks Configuration Management product, and then had a few days in Dublin, Ireland for a rest. That was very nice, thanks for asking :) best day was the one where we went to the Guinness Storehouse http://www.guinness-storehouse.com followed by the Jameson Distillery tour http://www.jamesonwhiskey.com

Back to reality... Hot Patch 6 was made available on July 31, and the links for downloads are in the usual places: ZDM7 ZSM7 

For those of you who are mystified by the process to get hold of these patches, I can reveal that hopefully this is a temporary measure: from this point on, the idea is that we will post new hot patches, then after a short period, if no bad side effects have been revealed, they will be made available for searching on http://download.novell.com just like other patches!