We were pleasantly surprised to find PatchLink's agents a breeze to install—we simply connected to the update server via a Web browser to get rolling. For Windows agent installs, the Agent Management Center can automate deployment with remote registry and file and print sharing enabled. Command line silent installs speed up deployment on non-Windows systems.
Initial scan results were available almost immediately and showed patches available as "vulnerabilities." Installed agents are by grouped according to OS, and devices can be assigned to multiple groups. Organizations that need customization will find plenty of options. Aside from the ability to schedule deployments of multiple patches, we could suspend deployment in case of patch failure, easily change the deployment order or options of a particular patch, and customize user notification or alert to a required reboot. Each patch can have its own message, options and time limit.
Lumension's patch repository was quick to respond to requests for new package downloads, and communications between update server and patch repository is over a secure protocol, with each package verified by the server. More Control
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FEATURED PRODUCT: Lumension Security PatchLink Update 6.4 ABOUT THIS ROLLING REVIEW: We're testing patch management products at our Windward IT Solutions Real-World Labs. Assessment areas include 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 NEXT UP: BigFix OTHER VENDORS INVITED: BladeLogic, BMC Software, CA, Configuresoft, Ecora Software Corp., IBM, Kaseya Corp., LANDesk Software, Novell, Opsware, Symantec Corp. |
One aspect we saw with room for improvement is how the application dealt with network bandwidth: Patchlink let us control bandwidth in two ways, as a client-end KB/sec setting and by allowing consecutive or limited concurrent deployments. The option for consecutive or limiting concurrent deployments can be specified per deployment while the client setting will affect all deployments until changed. An option for limiting bandwidth use to a percentage of available bandwidth would enable more timely patching results and more efficient use of resources while minimizing the performance impact on the other services.
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