Ring Deployment Jobs

Patch Management offers Ring deployment jobs functionality.

Ring Based Deployment Jobs

A ring deployment job helps you deploy patches in stages by linking jobs together. A ring job inherits patches from the parent deployment job and can be configured to run only after specific conditions of post-actions set in the parent job are met. You can add a condition to include up to five post-actions and define the minimum success percentage required for those post-actions. Once the defined success criteria are met, the ring job starts automatically, without any manual intervention. 

This approach reduces manual intervention, streamlines complex patching workflows, and ensures that dependencies (such as reboots) are met. The capability is available on Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms. 

How Success Percentage Works

The success percentage determines when the ring job is allowed to start, based on the completion of post‑actions in the parent job. 

Example 1: Single Post‑Action

• Parent job targets 1,000 assets
• Success percentage set to 75%
• Ring job includes 1 post‑action
• Total post‑actions = 1 × 1,000 = 1,000

The ring job starts after the post‑action succeeds on 750 assets (75% of 1,000).

Example 2: Multiple Post‑Actions

• Parent job targets 1,000 assets
• Ring job includes 3 post‑actions
• Total post‑actions = 3 × 1,000 = 3,000
• Success percentage set to 75%

The ring job starts after 2,250 successful post‑actions (75% of 3,000 = 2,250)

Test ----> Staging ----> Production Deployment

When deploying patches to the test, staging and production environments, you need to manually verify and track the patches execution in the test environment, before proceeding with the staging and production environments.

To overcome this challenge, you can use the ring jobs functionality to automate this flow. Suppose you need to test the patches as per the Patch Tuesday schedule in the test environment, and include those in the Staging and Production environments, then you can proceed with the following deployments: 

1. Create a Parent Job for Test Environment: Include the required test assets and patches in the job. Select the job for Patch Tuesday + 1 day. Configure the required post-action, such as System Health Check of the assets. 
2. Create a Staging Ring Job: Select the parent job to inherit patches. Add the condition and select the required parent job post-action. Set success criterion, for example, 75 % successful completion). This job is by default configured as On-Demand schedule. 

   The staging job starts automatically once the post‑action succeeds on 75% of test assets (For 1,000 assets → 750 successful completions).

3. Create a Production Ring Job: Select the same parent job to inherit patches. No success condition required (optional). Schedule the job for Patch Tuesday + 7 days. 

The production job runs automatically at the scheduled time, using already‑validated patches.

You can adopt the ring based deployment obs to gain reliable, automated, and scalable patching strategy. 

Create a Ring Job

To create a ring job, perform the following: 

1. Create a Parent Job
2. Create a Ring Job

1. Create Parent Job

Create a parent deployment job (for example, a Windows patch job) with the required post-actions. Configure the job with required assets, patches and one or more post-actions and schedule. For more information, see Creating Patch Job for Windows Assets.

2. Create Ring Job

To create a ring job, perform the following:

1. Follow steps 1-4 in Creating Patch Job for Windows Assets.
2. On the Select Patches tab, select the Patch Selection from Another Job option.
   
   
3. On the Select Patch window, select the parent job created in step 1. The patches from the parent job are automatically included in the ring job.
4. (Optional) In the Add Condition section, the post-actions configured in the parent job are pre-populated. Remove any post-action if not required. 

   A ring job can be created with or without a post‑action success condition. Post‑actions are required only if you want the ring job to wait for a defined success percentage.

5. Enter the percentage of  completed for the successful post actions execution.
6. Complete steps 4-9 in Creating Patch Job for Windows Assets.

The ring job runs at the scheduled time and only after the specified percentage of successful execution of the configured post-actions, if any, is achieved.