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Rolling Review: Shavlik Technologies NetChk Protect 5.9: Page 2 of 4

Let's Get Scanning

NetChk supports most enterprise-class Microsoft OSes and applications, including Office, Exchange, Visual Studio .Net and SharePoint. We found NetChk's agentless option extremely compelling. All capabilities are available—we executed complete scanning, patch installation and removal, and spyware discovery and remediation from the management console without installing any Shavlik software on target machines. Agents are available at no extra charge for environments where connectivity may not be present at all times.


This article is the first of a series and is part of NWC's Rolling Review of Automated Patch Management Applications. Click on that link to go to the Rolling Reviews home page to read all the features and reviews now.

There's also a built-in feature to patch target Office suites to bring them in line with one specified master Office installation, rather than applying patches as they're released. This is useful for companies whose policy is to build and test patches prior to massive deployment—always recommended. When you're ready to deploy patches to target machines, network usage can be moderated by reducing the "copy speed" setting. We would like to see the company add the ability to delay copying of patches without the use of Distribution Server. While we could define when a patch would be applied, it will be copied to target machines immediately. 100% Windows

Unfortunately for those whose networks include Linux, Unix, HP or other platforms, NetChk supports only Windows OSes and applications. It also does not include antivirus capabilities. Note that many antivirus products have patching and updating as core functionality, but this generally results in two separate systems that IT needs to monitor for patch and compliance reporting.

In Detail
FEATURED PRODUCT:
Shavlik Technologies NetChk Protect 5.9; $19,200 for 300 Windows machines plus 300 VMs running Windows, including first year's maintenance.
ABOUT THIS ROLLING REVIEW:
Patch management products are being tested at our Real-World Labs at Windward Consulting Group. We're assessing breadth of platforms supported, how well a product uses subscription services to discover patches, how thoroughly it discovers our environment, what rollback capabilities are available, testing and staging capabilities prior to production, reporting, and network bandwidth control.

NEXT UP:

Lumension Security
OTHER VENDORS INVITED:
BigFix, BladeLogic, BMC Software, CA, Configuresoft, Ecora Software Corp., IBM, Kaseya Corp., LANDesk Software, Novell, Opsware, Symantec Corp.

Installation on our server was a breeze, but the initial network scan took some configuration. The native XP firewall initially blocked the console from being able to scan our XP boxes, and even after opening the port, Simple File Sharing needed to be disabled in order for NetChk to be able to log in with appropriate rights to scan. Solutions to both these issues were found on Shavlik's forums.