Issue TOC Print full article Print this page Download as PDF E-Mail this URL Flame the author     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

For day-to-day network management, it's easy to get bogged down in minutia while the big picture passes you by. Clearly that's a big mistake, but new users must be added, software updated, firewalls monitored and patch levels maintained. Luckily a number of tools can ease that daily burden. We recently looked at tape libraries that make backing up data much easier ("OverLand Writes the Book on Tape Libraries") and new security information management systems that can help keep you on top of event logs (see "Connect the Dots").

Another step in the right direction is the patch-management tool. While these products cannot tell you which hot fixes to implement (hey, consider it job security) they can make deploying patches a quick and easy process. There are two types of patch managers, those that use agents on end-user machines and those that scan network hosts. We gathered two of the former--BigFix Enterprise Suite 1.1 and PatchLink Update 3.0--and three of the latter--Gravity Storm Software Service Pack Manager 2000 6.4, Shavlik Technologies HFNetChkPro Enterprise 3.8 and St. Bernard Software UpdateExpert 5.1--in our Neohapsis partner labs. We liked the BigFix and PatchLink products best despite being required to distribute agents to each target system. In fact, PatchLink Update is our Editor's Choice, and BigFix Enterprise held second place despite its swollen price tag. The scanners were comparable and might be a good choice for networks where you have a high degree of control over individual systems.