Rolling Review: Lumension PatchLink: Page 3 of 4

In addition, the process to roll back patches was not as clear cut as we would like. Previous deployments are listed for each device, and to uninstall a patch we needed to open the properties of that patch within the deployment dialog, check the uninstall box, and run the deployment again. This could be cumbersome if many patches must be uninstalled.

One-Size-Fits-All

While we did not test scalability, the PatchLink architecture should allow large organizations to easily distribute the product. We also discovered that many large enterprise software vendors use Lumension as an OEM for their patching and configuration management systems.

Lumension's policy-based administration scheme will be a good fit for organizations using a best-practice framework for process control and regulatory compliance; PatchLink will allow them to ensure that all systems meet a mandatory baseline policy.

PatchLink does not use a perpetual license model, which we found a little disappointing. The server software is a one-time fee of $1,695, while 300 Windows physical servers cost $19 per node, renewable yearly. For 200 Linux servers you'll pay $40 per node, and 150 Sun Solaris physical servers run $40 per node; both are renewable each year. If you have virtualization enabled, 100 VMware ESX virtual servers running 300 instances of Windows OSes cost $19 per node, again renewable yearly. For our environment, we would spend about $27,000 for the first year, then have $25,000 in recurring costs. We understand the logic around this—Lumension does do an extensive amount of testing on new patches as a service to customers—but it's something to factor in the budget.