Patch management is an inglorious part of the life of admins, engineers, technicians, and support staff. It seems that the patches just keep coming faster and faster, and where they once fixed function bugs or even enable extended features, now the majority address security vulnerabilities. That’s not good news because there is a lot more pressure on getting security patches in place in a timely manner than in most other scenarios.
If you are responsible for patch management and everything is running smooth, then you probably consider patching as a rote activity. If you are responsible for a large IT environment where you feel like you’re always one step behind the patches you need to install, then you are probably feeling like a lot of the folks – frustrated.
One of the capabilities in the ConsoleWorks solution is a module called Multi-Connect. With Multi-Connect, up to 40 like devices can be patched at the same time from a single master console. Just put the devices into a group and then patch them all at the same time. What is unique about this capability is that while you may only have one master console, all devices being patched are continuously monitored so you can jump in and fix any issues on any device as needed. All patching activities in this scenario are fully recorded, making it extremely easy to provide documentation for compliance purposes and alerted on any issues that may arise.
ConsoleWorks Use Cases – Large Solaris server environment reduced the man-hours required for patching by 3x, saving them over a million dollars a year. In another scenario, a small (5) server environment drop patching and maintenance costs by over $50,000 per year.
Electric Utilities – ConsoleWorks now offers Automated Patch Analysis. A solution that greatly simplifies the process of gathering the information required for patching IT and OT devices – beyond the HMI.
