What is Change Assistant - An Introduction

What is Change Assistant?
Change Assistant is a tool that expedites the software update process i.e. a tool to assemble and organize the steps necessary to apply patches and fixes for your PeopleTools maintenance updates. Change Assistant also helps automate the application of change packages to ensure your systems have the latest maintenance software. The PeopleSoft Change Assistant is a standalone application for applying application updates and performing upgrades. Change Assistant utilizes the Environment Management Framework.

What is EMF?
Environment Management Framework (EMF) is a product that gathers and publishes PeopleSoft installation, configuration, and update information.Change Assistant is actually only one piece of the Environment Management Framework (EMF). EMF consists of one Environment Management Hub (EMHUB), Environment Management Agent(s) EMAgent, Change Assistant (CA) and Customer Connection Update Gateway.

What is the Environment Management Hub?
The EMHUB is a central repository of information. It stores the information gathered from the various pieces of your PeopleSoft environment including installed products and information about all updates and fixes that have already been applied to the system. This is where Change Assistant gets its information. The EM hub is installed as part of the standard PIA installs. EM Hub supports both single server and multi- server installs. The EM hub run on WebSphere or WebLogic servers. The following directories related to EM Hub are created for the EM Hub\webserv\peoplesoft\\PSEMHUB

What is an Environment Management Agent?
An EMAgent is a process that crawls (scans the hard drive) for known PeopleSoft patterns for manageable components. The EMAgent publishes management information to the EMHUB. The EMAgent also sends a heartbeat (pulse) and checks for messages and nistructions from the EMHUB.
EMAgent(s) need to be run on all most all servers.
In PeopleSoft we talk of five servers: Application Server, Batch Server (Process Scheduler), Database Server, File Server and Web Server. You may have these on separate computers; have them all on one computer or another combination. You may also have multiple Application, Batch, File and Web servers.
Each computer that is used as a server, except for the database server, needs to have an EMAgent running on it. If one computer is used as multiple server roles (ie Application/Batch server) it only needs one agent running on it regardless of how many PeopleSoft Environments are installed on it.Agents are installed as part of the standard CD installs of People Tools software, The EM Agent will be installed under a PSEMAgent directory under directory.

Change Assistant replaces PeopleSoft Upgrade Assistant to automate all upgrades beginning with PeopleTools release 8.46. Any upgrades performed to a release prior to release 8.46, and using the conventional upgrade in place method of performing an upgrade should continue to use PeopleSoft Upgrade Assistant to perform the upgrade.

If you are upgrading to PeopleTools 8.44 or below, you must use PeopleSoft Upgrade Assistant.

So with PeopleSoft Change Assistant you can do the following:

• Apply Application Updates i.e Apply Change packages, Maintainence Packs etc
• PeopleTools Only Upgrade
• Perform Application Upgrade Perform
• Create or Modify Templates

So, Before you proceed further, you need to have Change Assistant Installed and Configured to the appropriate task. Most common type of usage is Applying Change Packages (bundles, tax updates etc) , Application Upgrades like 8.8 to 9.0 or 8.9 to 9.0 and Tools Upgrade like PT 8.46 to PT 8.49 etc. We will see how you do all this for each step. But first, let's take a look at what Change Assistant Tool has...