About dynamic application updates

This section provides an overview of the dynamic application update feature.

Symphony’s dynamic application update feature facilitates the administration of service packages and their associations with applications. The Symphony application update features allow you to:

  • Deploy an updated service package without stopping the current workload.

  • Dynamically update or remove session type and service sections from the application profile without stopping the current workload. Only sessions using the removed sections are affected.

  • Dynamically add session type and service sections to the application profile without stopping the current workload.

  • Deploy a service package to any level of the consumer tree allowing the service to be shared with all consumers below this level. This enables service packages to be shared among multiple applications linked by the downward path of the consumer hierarchy.

The following table offers guidelines for choosing the right method to perform typical application updates. Within this table, the term workload is defined as existing running tasks and sessions associated with the application that is being updated.


Option

What you want to do

Result

1

  1. You have an updated service package for an enabled application.

  2. You want current and future workload to use the updated service package.

  3. You want to overwrite the original service package.

    Note:

    You will not be able to switch back to the original service package.

Refer to Using the PMC to deploy service packages for consumers with short names

  • Workload continues to run with the next scheduled task using the updated service package.

  • The updated service package has the same name as the original service package.

  • Once updated, the original service package is no longer available in the repository.

  • Clients do not need modification.

2

  1. You have an updated service package for an enabled application.

  2. You want current and future workload to use the updated service package.

  3. You want to be able to easily switch back to the original service package, if necessary.

    Note:

    You must use a new name for the updated service package so that the repository can store both the original and updated packages.

Refer to Change a service package for an existing service

  • Workload continues to run with the next scheduled task using the updated service package.

  • The updated service package has a different name than the original serivce package.

  • Once it is replaced, the original service package is still available in the repository.

  • Clients do not need modification.

3

  1. You have a new service package for an enabled application.

  2. You only want clients that have been notified to use the new service.

Refer to Add a new service and session type

  • Workload continues to run using the existing service.

  • Clients that are aware of the new session type can use the new service.

  • Clients may need modification.

4

  1. You have a new service package for an enabled application.

  2. You want to use the new service when you create a new session.

Refer to Assign a new service to an existing session type

  • Workload continues to run using the existing service.

  • New sessions with the updated session type use the new service.

  • Clients do not need modification.

5

You no longer need a service or session type and want to remove it from an application.

Refer to Remove a service/session type

Any session that uses the removed service or session type is aborted.