SharePoint 2016 March 2019 Update

Question

I joined in a company two weeks ago and my first assignment is to apply March 2019 updates on SharePoint 2016 farm. We have 2 App, 2 WFE, 2 Cache, 2 Search servers and 1 SQL Server. I am not sure how they installed it but I am assuming they might have used MinRole. The latest update was 16.4690.100, which is May 2018. This was an incomplete update because I see “Upgrade Required” status for Cache1, Cache2, Search1 and Serach2 servers. I have few questions and nervous about doing the update. Following are my questions:

1. Do I need to correct the “Upgrade Required” status error first before applying the March 2019 update? If yes, what should I do?
2. I have 3 content databases which are bigger than 150 GB. Is the going to be a problem when I do the updates?
3. I saw Shane Young’s YouTube videos on applying updates on Single Farm Server. How different is to apply updates on multi-farm server? Please point me to any good articles or links. Thank you for your answers in advance! Kalai

Answer 1

There is a lengthy document about the process to apply updates in a multi-server scenario. It is going to depend on your business requirements as to how you execute it. The basics are that you install the update on each farm member, then run the config wizard on each farm member.

But to more directly answer your other questions, large content databases are not an issue although the larger they are (or the more you have), in general the longer the update will take.

You can install a newer update without correcting the older patch, if I recall correctly.