What is the difference between a service pack and a patch of CA Automation Point?
Article ID: 28473
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Issue/Introduction
A common item of confusion is the terminology we use when describing product updates. There are two main types of product updates: the service pack and the patch. This article describes the differences between service packs and patches, how they are related, and how they should be applied to your CA Automation Point software
What is the difference between a service pack and a patch?
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A service pack is a complete release of the product incorporating all fixes and newly developed features up to that point and is usually released about every six months. It includes everything that was on the original GA .ISO (for example, drivers, samples, documentation) and performs a full product installation to bring all the files up to date. A service pack can be downloaded from Broadcom Support Portal. Customers who are licensed for the current product should receive a notification from us when the service pack becomes generally available for download.
A patch is an update that incorporates a smaller number of fixes and is only available by download from the AP Solutions Download. A patch normally includes only the files that have changed since the last version release or service pack, including fixes from previous patches. Patches are usually released once one a month, depending on the number and frequency of fixes since the last version release, service pack, or patch, so you should check regularly to ensure that you have the latest version applied in your environment.
Install Updates in the Correct Order
The conventions we use for naming patches and service packs make it easy to identify which version you have. Service packs are consecutively numbered based on the order of release for a product version (for example, Automation Point 11.4 SP1- 11.4.1, Automation Point 11.4 SP2- 11.4.2 and so on). Patches are named numerically based on the service pack they update (for example, Service Pack 1 Patch 1 - 11.4.1.1, Service Pack 1 Patch 2 - 11.4.1.2 and so on). It is very important to remember that a service pack incorporates all fixes included in all patches released up to that point. Also, patches cannot be applied to a system until the most recent service pack that was released before the patch was released has been installed. This means you cannot install Patch 1 for Service Pack 2 on a system that is running Patch 3 for Service Pack 1 until Service Pack 2 itself is installed. Installing updates out of order can lead to major problems because the various versions of the files may be incompatible.
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