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R E V I E W

PatchLink Helps Keep Windows Closed

September 2, 2002
By Patrick Mueller

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PatchLink Corp. PatchLink Update 3.0

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	In this article
	Introduction
	PatchLink Corp. PatchLink Update 3.0
	Other Products Reviewed
	Executive Summary
	Why Patch?
	How We Tested
	A Heap of Trouble
	Microsoft's Patch tools: Incomplete
	Report Card

PatchLink Update provides the most complete feature set, an agent-based architecture and competitive pricing. The agent is installed on all managed hosts, both servers and workstations. By periodically connecting to the PatchLink server, the agent checks for new patches that have been pushed out by the administrator and installs them as instructed.

Update monitors the Microsoft patch-distribution channels and packages the patches in PatchLink's digitally signed format. Patches are continually downloaded to your local PatchLink server, ready to be pushed out immediately if needed.

Agent installation is straightforward: Simply connect to the local PatchLink server over HTTPS and download and install the agent. The agent can be installed in a variety of other ways, such as including it in standard build images or scripting via login scripts.

PatchLink Extended Pricing Chart

Click here to enlarge

PatchLink is the only vendor in our tests that offers coverage for non-Microsoft platforms, including IBM AIX, Sun Microsystems Solaris, Linux and Novell NetWare (pricing varies for these OSs; see "PatchLink Extended Pricing Chart" graphic). Analyzing these other agents was outside the scope of our testing, but if you require a unified patching effort across multiple platforms, PatchLink sets itself apart. In addition, PatchLink Update natively supplies patches from other software and hardware vendors (see the features chart), making it easy to, for example, continually push out virus definition updates, such as those from Symantec.

You can even create custom packages for distributing software of any kind through a GUI wizard. The agent collects end-user hosts' software and hardware configurations and makes them available to the administrator. Helpdesk admins will appreciate these lightweight enterprise-management features when they're troubleshooting remote end-user issues.

About the only feature missing from the product is the ability to arbitrarily group hosts into user-defined sets, thereby giving the administrator more flexibility over how patches are pushed out to functionally different populations of hosts. PatchLink promises that version 4.0, which was due out in August, will include such functionality.

PatchLink Update 3.0, $12,011 (as tested). PatchLink, (888) 970-1025, (480) 970-1025., (215) 793-6500, (800) LINK-NOW. http://www.patchlink.com