Friday, August 13, 2004
Triangle Novell Users' Group meeting about Novell Patch Management
I attended the July meeting of the Triangle Novell Users' Group, at which Michael Parillo, Category Specialist in the Nterprise Resource Management Team of Novell held a presentation about Novell Patch Management using Patch Link. The main points that I got out of this presentation are as follows:
- Patch Link takes patches from multiple vendors and tests them in multiple scenarios and then attaches notes about usability, gotchas, etc.
- Red Carpet Enterprise is the roughly equivalent patch management solution for Linux.
- Patch Link goes to the vendors, uploads the patches to the patch link update server and the patches go from there to client machines.
- The patch server and patch cache can be secured inside a firewall. It puts the resources near the users.
- It uses an agent based architecture. The agent resides on the machine and reports to the server. The agent knows what is running on the machine and only requests the appropriate patches.
- There is an email notification function for urgent updates.
- Patch Link contains a reporting function, which reports which vulnerabilities are present on a machine.
- For security it uses HTTPS, SSL and 128 bit encryption.
- Patch management can be performed from anywhere by way of a web browser.
- ZenWorks for Desktops 6.5 includes Patch Link 5.0. Patch Link 6.0 has been released, and will be updated in ZenWorks once the code has been released to Novell.
- Patch Link is subscription based. ZenWorks 6.5 contains a 90 day trial for Patch Link for up to 100 users.
- Patch Link makes sure that a patch remains installed and is not overwritten for various reasons.
After the presentation, Michael presented a live demo of Patch Link. During the demo the following points were made:
- Patch Link agent does not require a client.
- It runs on a Microsoft server, and requires IIS for its web server. Talks are in progress to make it available for other servers as well.
- The admin interface can show the number of machines that are patched and the number that are not patched, and can show which machines are missing patches. Errors will be shown as well.
- It uses port 80 or port 443.
- Suggested retail price before Novell discounts is $18/node.
The PowerPoint presentations that Michael used for his presentation are available here.
Comments []
- Patch Link takes patches from multiple vendors and tests them in multiple scenarios and then attaches notes about usability, gotchas, etc.
- Red Carpet Enterprise is the roughly equivalent patch management solution for Linux.
- Patch Link goes to the vendors, uploads the patches to the patch link update server and the patches go from there to client machines.
- The patch server and patch cache can be secured inside a firewall. It puts the resources near the users.
- It uses an agent based architecture. The agent resides on the machine and reports to the server. The agent knows what is running on the machine and only requests the appropriate patches.
- There is an email notification function for urgent updates.
- Patch Link contains a reporting function, which reports which vulnerabilities are present on a machine.
- For security it uses HTTPS, SSL and 128 bit encryption.
- Patch management can be performed from anywhere by way of a web browser.
- ZenWorks for Desktops 6.5 includes Patch Link 5.0. Patch Link 6.0 has been released, and will be updated in ZenWorks once the code has been released to Novell.
- Patch Link is subscription based. ZenWorks 6.5 contains a 90 day trial for Patch Link for up to 100 users.
- Patch Link makes sure that a patch remains installed and is not overwritten for various reasons.
After the presentation, Michael presented a live demo of Patch Link. During the demo the following points were made:
- Patch Link agent does not require a client.
- It runs on a Microsoft server, and requires IIS for its web server. Talks are in progress to make it available for other servers as well.
- The admin interface can show the number of machines that are patched and the number that are not patched, and can show which machines are missing patches. Errors will be shown as well.
- It uses port 80 or port 443.
- Suggested retail price before Novell discounts is $18/node.
The PowerPoint presentations that Michael used for his presentation are available here.
Comments []
