Patch Management Intro

Introduction

CapaInstaller Patch Management enables controlled update deployment. The solution integrates with Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS 3.0), which automatically downloads the latest updates as soon as they become available from Microsoft. WSUS delivers updates for many popular Microsoft programs, including Windows, Office and Internet Explorer.


 

Element

Description

Maximum Security and Productivity

IT managers are today faced with a seemingly endless parade of software releases, updates, patches and security enhancements, each of which needs to be applied to every desktop machine in the network.
 
And as the many recent, high-profile Internet virus and worm attacks demonstrate, neglecting to apply a patch can result in even more expenses and lost time than applying it. CapaInstaller Patch Management makes it easy to test and roll out new updates to every client as soon as they become available.
 

Controlled Updates and WSUS Integration

Windows is able to update itself by periodically checking with Microsoft’s internet update server, downloading all appropriate updates and then installing them. For home users this is an effective way of finding and applying updates, however, for enterprise users, it causes extra Internet traffic and may bypass the management solution.
 
To help address this problem, Microsoft’s Windows Server Update Services (WSUS 3.0) enables organizations to use a single server to download all new updates as they are released from Microsoft, store them on a server in the local network and then distribute them from here. This helps ensure that the updates are downloaded just once over the Internet and allows for centralized management of their distribution. Updates for many popular Microsoft programs, including Windows, Office and Internet Explorer, are distributed in this way.
 
The full WSUS 3.0 solution includes a single WSUS server for downloading updates from Microsoft and many WSUS clients (one for each workstation). However, if you are using CapaInstaller, you should use CapaInstaller to distribute the updates through its standard channel instead of setting up WSUS clients.
 
When integrated with WSUS 3.0, CapaInstaller enables you to review all new updates downloaded by WSUS 3.0 and then mark them for distribution to either your test or production environments.
 

Test before your release

New updates, especially operating-system patches, should never be distributed before they have been proved to be compatible with all mission-critical applications. CapaInstaller Patch Management, therefore, enables IT managers to limit the distribution of newly downloaded patches to a small test environment.
 
Once a patch is approved, managers can then distribute it to all clients in the organization with just the touch of a button.
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