INLS 187

Future Forecast

Aaron Shah

The world that we live in has changed so much with the computer and the need for people to communicate with each other. This communication has an amazing history with the creation of the internet. The internet has exposed the simplicity of the foundation of the computer and the operating system to various dangerous viruses as the negative aspect to this wonder which brings us to the topic of discussion which is the ways that Microsoft provides to update machines with periodic security patches.

I believe that all technicians and individual users have encountered the task of updating personal as well as business machines and networks with an array of patches. The original source for updates is the windows automated updates site where the individual user goes to the windows update site and selects a variety of software critical security updates that are recommended and approved by Microsoft to use. The second way is called the SUS which stands for software update services which was developed as a security update management tool to give the administrator one place to go to receive approval and simplify as well as keep all windows based systems up to date with windows based packages and to prevent viruses from the internet from damaging the operating system on the machines and server.

It was also put into place for companies with small bandwith.The main problem with this is that they are only able to do their critical updates and service packages, they don’t support non Microsoft software such as Norton’s or platforms such as Linux. This issue that has raised causes technology to improve to address these new obstacles which has forced Microsoft to develop windows updates services which are in beta version. This version is the next step in the evolution which is WUS windows update services which is scheduled to be introduced in the middle of 2005 allow the variety of users to do more types of patches as it advances the things that the original SUS can do, such as; updating different versions of office, SQL Server, Exchange and other Microsoft products.

WUS will have the unique capability to provide built-in status assessment and reporting. It will increase the output of the Information Technology department which will in turn save companies revenue. It will give Network Administrators more control of the activities of its users and reduce the cost of overall maintenance of the networks. I guess that the question to be posed is where will they go in the future?

To make it easier on the user maybe one site can be created so that one machine can check in and let the entire network know what updates it needs and updated automatically. Just as you have office updates, why can’t you just configure your machine to go to a trusted site and get everything it needs? For example: when Macromedia comes up with a new patch they could submit it to Microsoft and then Microsoft would then scan your machine to see what you need and "fix" your machine accordingly. This type of technology would do even more wonders for saving resources, time and money for an administrator as well as the entire company.

While these new ideas are just in the preliminary stages, Bill Gates and Microsoft are making strides to accomplish this as is evident by Microsoft’s plan to untangle its management software lineup and introduce its first such tools for Web services in a effort to win cooperate customers. Microsoft is harmonizing its disparate management software products, an early stage in its Dynamic Systems Initiative to make corporate data center technology cheaper and easier to run. By strengthening its systems management software, an area in which Microsoft has been comparatively weak--the company hopes to convince enterprise customers to base their most important systems on Windows.

LaMonica, Martin. NEWS.COM, Tech News First. 8 Oct. 2003. Sep. 2004 <http://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+unify+management+tools/2100-7345_3-5088269.html?tag=nl>.