MS Service Pack frustrations

I just have to vent. I just upgraded out production database to a pair of
clustered DL740 servers running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, SP1.
My SQL is 2000 with Service Pack4. The "new" items in this configuration are
the servers themselves, Server 2003, SP1 and SQL 2000 SP4.
My first gripe is with the Windodws 2000 SP1. Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Service Pack 1 (SP1) implements a security feature that reduces the size of
the queue for concurrent TCP/IP connections to the server. This is done
because the OS assumes a DoS attack is occuring. There is NO notification
that this event has happened in any event log. Do you suppose that
administrators might want to be notified if the OS thinks such an event is
occuring? Not only does this frost me, but I spent more than 8 hours over two
days on the phone with MS tech support and THEY DIDN'T EVEN FIND THE
SOLUTION!!! One of our developers searched KB articles and came up with
KB899599 which gave us our only clue to this issue. Once we implemented the
workaround, the problem was resolved. Meanwhile our customers experienced
dropped connections for three days.
My second gripe is with SQL 2000 SP4 and it's sudden lack of support for all
memory when using AWE. This little bit of fun is documented in KB899761.
Since both of these service packs were introduced in our new configuration,
you can imagine we had a fun time wading through all of this to get things
back to normal. I'm going back to my original stance that NOTHING from MS as
far as patches is worth putting on until they are at least 6 months old.
Thanks for letting me get on my soapbox.
Ken
As Microsoft says: Test everything in a Test environment before you put it
into production.
I work for a very large bank, and with this process, we have never burned
our fingers and are capable of rolling out a patch or fix to all servers
knowing that it works as desired, and usually quicker than someone without a
test environment.
Regards
Mike Epprecht, Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Zurich, Switzerland
IM: mike@.epprecht.net
MVP Program: http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/epprecht/
"kmkrause2" <kmkrause2@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9A825D91-B20E-40EC-843F-77AADFE9A0ED@.microsoft.com...
> I just have to vent. I just upgraded out production database to a pair of
> clustered DL740 servers running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition,
> SP1.
> My SQL is 2000 with Service Pack4. The "new" items in this configuration
> are
> the servers themselves, Server 2003, SP1 and SQL 2000 SP4.
> My first gripe is with the Windodws 2000 SP1. Microsoft Windows Server
> 2003
> Service Pack 1 (SP1) implements a security feature that reduces the size
> of
> the queue for concurrent TCP/IP connections to the server. This is done
> because the OS assumes a DoS attack is occuring. There is NO notification
> that this event has happened in any event log. Do you suppose that
> administrators might want to be notified if the OS thinks such an event is
> occuring? Not only does this frost me, but I spent more than 8 hours over
> two
> days on the phone with MS tech support and THEY DIDN'T EVEN FIND THE
> SOLUTION!!! One of our developers searched KB articles and came up with
> KB899599 which gave us our only clue to this issue. Once we implemented
> the
> workaround, the problem was resolved. Meanwhile our customers experienced
> dropped connections for three days.
> My second gripe is with SQL 2000 SP4 and it's sudden lack of support for
> all
> memory when using AWE. This little bit of fun is documented in KB899761.
> Since both of these service packs were introduced in our new
> configuration,
> you can imagine we had a fun time wading through all of this to get things
> back to normal. I'm going back to my original stance that NOTHING from MS
> as
> far as patches is worth putting on until they are at least 6 months old.
> Thanks for letting me get on my soapbox.
> Ken
>