SharePoint patching playbook

SharePoint patching is always tricky. Difficult to test, difficult to roll back in case of issues, you name it. And every SharePoint pro has the own way to do patching which has been proved reliable and efficient. But now we can rely not only on our own experience and blogs like this one. We have a source of sacred knowledge, passed down from Microsoft itself. Common, grab it faster from Technet Gallery: SharePoint Build to Build Update Playbook

If you are still reading, here is my opinion on this playbook:

1. Having any playbook is much better than having no playbook at all. So this will definitely help you if you don’t have a formal approach to updating SharePoint.
2. Since every SharePoint deployment is unique, there is no “one size fits all” approach. This playbook requires some adaptation for your customers’ SharePoint deployment. Worth mentioning that the playbook is not version-specific. Some tasks are not applicable for SharePoint 2010, like the one related to distributed cache.
3. I would say that many of the tasks mentioned in the playbook can be and should be scripted. For instance, preparation steps like testing content DBs or verifying that there is no verbose logging enabled can be scripted easily.

Happy patching, folks!