At the company I work for, we are starting to use a product called Everguard. It is a service made by a company called Gribraltar Software. You install an agent on each server that you want updated and it reports back to a Master server ( a linux appliace that is provided by Gibraltar). The agent reports back a package inventory and from the Master servers web console, you can choose to automatically deploy patches to a group of servers or to manually push them out via the console. It also give a great weath of reporting and also helps to manage what software packages are on each server.
It's not free, but for the number of servers we have, 300+, it will save us a great deal of time. A big plus, for us at least, is that it supports more than just Windows. It can currently push patches to Solaris and a few differnt distributions of Linux. Plans for supporting other OS's (HP-UX, AIX, ...) are in the works as well. Check it out: http://www.gibraltarsoft.com/ >>> Su Wadlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 07/11/03 16:58 PM >>> --On Friday, July 11, 2003 2:47 AM -0700 Ronish Mehta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Currently we are deploying patches manually, and this > is very time consuming, and we are not able to keep > uptodate with the latest patches being released by > Microsoft > > Anyone who has an automated process for deploying Microsoft Software Update Services. <http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/windowsupdate/sus/default.asp> Basically a company-internal version of Windows Update. Note that you can't use it to apply service packs; but it's *great* for applying other patches. And it's one product that you don't have to pay MS for. :-) We've been using it for patch deployment for over a year now, and it works great. Takes all the manual labor out of keeping our systems up to date. -- Su --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Evaluating SSL VPNs' Consider NEOTERIS, chosen as leader by top analysts! The Gartner Group just put Neoteris in the top of its Magic Quadrant, while InStat has confirmed Neoteris as the leader in marketshare. Find out why, and see how you can get plug-n-play secure remote access in about an hour, with no client, server changes, or ongoing maintenance. Visit us at: http://www.neoteris.com/promos/sf-6-9.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned for computer viruses. ________________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned for computer viruses. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Evaluating SSL VPNs' Consider NEOTERIS, chosen as leader by top analysts! The Gartner Group just put Neoteris in the top of its Magic Quadrant, while InStat has confirmed Neoteris as the leader in marketshare. Find out why, and see how you can get plug-n-play secure remote access in about an hour, with no client, server changes, or ongoing maintenance. Visit us at: http://www.neoteris.com/promos/sf-6-9.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
