Network World evaluated several Patch Management tools on
March 3rd. PatchLink Update won the Blue Ribbon Award. Also, none of our
customers were hit by Slammer. PatchLink Update's flexibility helped it
best three other products tested.
Please see the attached link to read about our Blue Ribbon
Award from Network World Fusion for Patch Management . http://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2003/0303patchrev.html
Review:
Windows patch management tools
PatchLink Update's flexibility helped it best three other
products tested.
By Mandy Andress, Network World Global Test
Alliance
Network World, 03/03/03
With Microsoft releasing more than 230 security bulletins
since the beginning of 2000 - most of those requiring some sort of
corrective action to fix a hole in one of its Windows-based products - the
numbers speak for themselves: Windows patch management in an enterprise
environment is a nightmare.
We tested four stand-alone Windows patch management
products - BigFix's Enterprise Suite, Gravity Storm Software's Service
Pack Manager 2000, PatchLink's Update and Shavlik Technologies' HfNetChk
Pro to find out if they improve patch deployment. (See "Not in the game"
for declining vendors.)
Patch management tools should identify accurately which
patches are missing on each system, provide an easy means to deploy
patches and provide administrative reports tracking patch status across
multiple machines.
The products we tested (see How we did it) attack the
problem in two ways - with or without agent software. Agent-based products
- such as those from PatchLink and BigFix - can greatly reduce network
traffic by offloading processing and analysis to the target system, saving
data until it needs to report to the central server. But they also force
an administrator to manage software on all systems the product analyzes.
With agentless products - such as those from Shavlik and
Gravity Storm - you don't have any distributed management issues, but
whenever a scan is requested all tests and communications travel over the
network. If scanning a domain with a large number of systems, the increase
in network traffic can be quite significant.
PatchLink's Update 4.0 earned the Network World
Blue Ribbon award for its ease of use, flexibility, automation and letting
you easily create deployment packages.
PatchLink has two components - PatchLink Update Server and
the agent. The Update Server is installed on a Windows 2000 Server with
SP2 and Internet Information Server (IIS). The installation process sets
up a Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) database, which can be upgraded to a
full SQL Server after installation. This upgrade is recommended for large
organizations.
You easily can push the agents to targeted machines using
the Agent Install Wizard, or agents can be installed during the logon
process.
For management purposes, administrators connect to the
PatchLink server through a Web interface, which lets you view reports,
deploy packages, create packages and view system inventory.
PatchLink, the company, monitors Microsoft and other
vendors, such as Citrix Systems and Adobe, for newly released patches.
PatchLink engineers test the patches, put them into PatchLink's
proprietary package format and deploy them to customers' local PatchLink
servers through a periodic subscription-checking process, which occurs
over Secure Sockets Layer at a time the administrator configures.
Administrators receive e-mail informing them of a new
patch on the PatchLink server. If it is a critical patch, it also is
downloaded to the Update Server on the customer's network. Noncritical
patches will be downloaded at the administrator's request.
PatchLink automatically caches critical patches on the
Update Server, a marked difference from BigFix and the agentless products.
Caching patches is useful and the recent Sapphire/Slammer SQL Server worm
proves the point. If a worm or other malicious act is taking place that
slows down the Internet, how will administrators download patches to their
critical servers? With cached patches, you already have the files at your
location.
Best Regards,
Marty Armstrong
[email protected]
PatchLink Corporation
3370 N. Hayden Road
Suite 123-175
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(P) 480-970-1025 Ext. 136
(F) 480-970-6323
<<http://www.patchlink.com/>>
PatchLink Update Awarded Blue Ribbion from Network World
Fusion
For the article go to:
http://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2003/0303patchrev.html
PatchLink Update Receives Network Computing Editor's
Choice Award for Patch Management
For the article go to:
<<http://www.patchlink.com/media_room/nwc92002.pdf>>