Re: second opinion needed: Effort for SAR install vs full upgrade of E1 tools version (8.96 to 8.98)
The question doesn't have a clean answer. Some SARs are small. Some are huge. Some SARs are in Tools Releases. You're really comparing apples and oranges.
A SAR really refers to the request to fix an issue someone has run into. What the fix affects depends on what the SAR is about. It could affect an application or report (these fixes are packaged into an ESU, Electronic Software Update), or the SAR could refer to system level problems (such as password encryption, these get put into Tools Release updates).
Now because an ESU could affect anywhere from 1 object to hundreds, the level of effort to apply, retrofit, build, and test an ESU and all the objects it affects will vary with the size of the ESU. Then the ESU must move up the line from one environment to another, involving another round of applying, building, and testing, until it reaches Production.
A Tools Release updates system level code, and thus potentially affects all the environments at once. In current practice, this is usually done in 2 phases, and is what is referred to as "multi-foundation." First you create an alternate area where the new Tools Release is installed, and associate your DV and/or PY environment to it for testing. After successful testing sign-off, then you apply it to Production, and reintegrate the associations of your test environments.
This level of effort is roughly the same every time, so if you think of the level of effort to install and test a Tools Release as a constant line, and the effort for an ESU to be a variable moving up and down with the number of objects in the ESU, then you can say, "Sure, sometimes the effort to install an ESU is the same as the effort to install a Tools Release, but how often is that really the case?" Usually the level for an ESU is below the line of a Tools Release.
