How to Gain Control over CloudHub Monthly Patching of Your Production Applications

As per the current process, CloudHub applies security patches as needed to ensure that your application is secure and, once per month, it updates Mule to maintain the stability of your application. We have a rigorous QA process to ensure that the CloudHub patch does not break functionalities or impact any of the existing applications. 

The schedule for monthly patch updates is:

• In the first full week of the month, MuleSoft releases the date patch.
• In the third full week of the month, MuleSoft automatically applies the date patch that was released in the first week of the month.

The exact dates when the monthly patches are released and applied to your applications are mentioned at the top of CloudHub Release Notes.

However, at times you may want more control over this monthly update because:

• You have a business critical application and you want the CloudHub patch to be applied when the application is under small load or during non-peak hours.
• You need your team on standby, to perform tests or troubleshoot in case of any issue.
• Your application has external dependencies and need external support in case of connection failures etc.
• CloudHub monthly patches do include bug fixes and enhancements. If you have developed a custom workaround for a certain bug, the patch update may break your application behavior.
• You want adequate time to review the release notes and perform relevant tests on the new CloudHub patch version.

If you want to control the CloudHub patch update for your applications, you will need to - 

1. Check the release date of the CloudHub patch and the dates on which this patch will be applied on Production and non-Production applications. You can find this in Release Notes documentation.
2. Go through the Release Notes to identify the fixes and enhancements planned for the next monthly patch release.
3. Before mandatory patching, update the CloudHub Runtime patch version for your application in lower environment and perform adequate tests. 
4. On a day and time of your choice, before mandatory patching, update the CloudHub Runtime patch version for your application in Production environment and perform adequate tests. 

This will ensure that your production applications are patched as per your plan.