Parallel Patching in Solaris 10

When you patch a Solaris 10 server it applies each patch to each zone one-at-a-time . So if you have 3 zones and it takes 1 minute to apply a patch on global zone then it will take another 1 minute each to apply on other 3 zones. Thus in total you will be spending around 4 minutes to apply single patch on the server. You can imagine the time it will take to apply a 300 patches bundle.
From Solaris 10 10/09 onward you have got an option to patch multiple zones in parallel.
(For releases prior to Solaris 10 10/09, this feature is delivered in the patch utilities patch, 119254-66 or later revision (SPARC) and 119255-66 or later revision (x86). Check latest patch on My Oracle Support Website)
Parallel patching is really helpful as it will apply patches in parallel to all the zones. So all your zones on a server will be patched at the same time thus drastically reducing your patching time. If we consider the above scenario if we use parallel patching, the total patching time for applying the patch in all zones can reduce to around 2 to 2.5 minutes. As global zone will still be patched first and then the patch will be applied on local zones in parallel.
The number of global zones that can be patched together is decided by a parameter num_proc=  which is defined in /etc/patch/pdo.conf .
The value for num_proc=  is decided based on number of online CPUs in your system. The maximum number is 1.5 times the number of online CPUs.
For example :-
If number of online CPUs is 6
In /etc/patch/pdo.conf make the entry

num_proc=9

Thus as per above example 9 zones can be patched in parallel.  This will reduce lot of downtime if you have 9 zones running in a server. Once the entry in pdo.conf is done you can continue with normal patching process.
So just update the num_proc value in  /etc/patch/pdo.conf  as per the available CPUs in your system and enjoy some free time 🙂
Note:- The time estimate I mentioned above are as per my own experience and I have not maintained any data for this. So please expect variations in time as per your system.
Do let me know if you have any query.