Uninstalling a patch was a bit more challenging than with previously tested products as it involved a wizard instead of a contextual option of the patch itself, but the process worked as advertised. A wizard was also necessary to obtain Sun Solaris patches, as that content now requires a login, and yet another wizard was used to set up pre-caching of patch files for deployment.
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In Detail
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FEATURED PRODUCT: BigFix Enterprise Suite 7.0.7.96; $20,250 as tested price includes Core, AntiThreat Pack, Policy Enforcement Pack, and Desktop and Server Management Solution Pack ABOUT THIS ROLLING REVIEW: Patch management products are being tested at our Real-World Labs at Windward IT Solutions. 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. ALREADY TESTED: • Shavlik • Lumension NEXT UP: LANDesk OTHER VENDORS INVITED: BladeLogic, BMC Software, CA, Configuresoft, Ecora Software Corp., IBM, Kaseya Corp., Novell, Opsware, Symantec Corp. |
BigFix's reporting capabilities are provided through a Web reports component, rather than the console itself. The company covers all the bases here, with out-of-the-box reports on vulnerability assessment, agent and client statistics, specific action results, and console operation. The capabilities provided by baselines are also reflected here, as reporting on baseline effectiveness can be an easy way to create relevant and useful reports.
BigFix can integrate into a CMDB or other application, such as a network management system, to help determine if a patch could have caused an outage. This is overkill for desktops, but useful for servers. BigFix offers a number of APIs, including for network access control, database access, vulnerability assessment, and inventory integration.
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