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IT
Jason
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With the increase in mobility of the computers in modern organizations, there is a higher difficulty faced by administrators when it comes to determining whether a system update has been carried out in every single computer or just some of those computer systems. In the past when the trend was based on the users updating the updates manually, it was easier to keep track of the systems as to which ones have been and which ones have not been updated. But the modern trend has shifted towards automatic updates which have made it difficult to track if a system or a set of systems have been updated and to check on such systems, and we can make use of the available solutions like System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) released by Microsoft.
Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) is one of the solutions deployed by organizations for centralizing the deployment of the updates with minimizing the amount of update traffic which is downloaded from the internet ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"A8KQxsWV","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Garcia, 2005)","plainCitation":"(Garcia, 2005)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":479,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/tjMYMZX7/items/N797L22V"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/tjMYMZX7/items/N797L22V"],"itemData":{"id":479,"type":"article-journal","title":"Windows Patch System Closing Gap; Review: Microsoft's no-cost WSUS gains important features, better interface.","container-title":"eWeek; New York","page":"45-46","volume":"22","issue":"18","source":"ProQuest","abstract":"Garcia reviews Windows Server Update Services.","ISSN":"15306283","shortTitle":"Windows Patch System Closing Gap; Review","language":"English","author":[{"family":"Garcia","given":"Andrew"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2005",5,2]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Garcia, 2005). As compared to one thousand computers running on a network downloading the 100MB update, one WSUS server is able to download the required update and distribute it to every other one thousand computers on that same network. This mechanism is perfect for the clients and can work fine till we take the saturated WAN links on the network. For a network to be compatible with the modern era, it must not have different computers at the branch office downloading the same updates from the WSUS server located at the head office across the lower bandwidth WAN link. To solve this problem, the WSUS can be separately configured at every branch location, such that the branch office clients obtain the updates from their local WSUS server.
Follow Up Post# 1:
By configuring the group policies of the network related to the updates, some of the casualness regarding the installation of updates could be mitigated. By enabling the Windows Update Power Management for automatically waking up the system for installing any scheduled updates, allows the administrator to wake the computer up at the administrator’s own specified time, to install the required updates. This is useful as this allows the administrator to set the computer for updates when it is known that no one would be using a particular PC on which the update is to be installed. This method only has one limitation: the BIOS of that computer must be able to support the mechanism of waking up from hibernation.
Follow Up Post# 2:
There is a fear among administrators that by installing the updates, they may break something. It is to be remembered that in this era if an update causes a few problems, they are not so which can completely crash the computer system. If any failure occurs, it is subtle. An administrator cannot find a problem soon enough after an update is installed on the test computer. People using the OS or applications on a daily basis are to find more faults as compared to a layman who only has a general familiarity with such issues.
References
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Garcia, A. (2005). Windows Patch System Closing Gap; Review: Microsoft’s no-cost WSUS gains important features, better interface. EWeek; New York, 22(18), 45–46.
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