I still prefer manual patch management over automated tools for small networks

At my last IT gig we switched from doing manual patch runs every Tuesday night to an automated tool called PatchPro. For about 6 months I thought it was great, no more staying late to babysit updates. But then we had three machines in accounting that got missed because the agent on them just silently failed. Took me 2 days to figure out why they were vulnerable to that MS Office exploit from April. Has anyone else had automated tools just quietly drop the ball like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

roseb4711d ago

PatchPro did the same thing to us. Had to build a weekly audit script to check all agents are actually reporting before I can trust the results.

parkerb7511d ago

Agreed with @roseb47, I used to think these tools were set it and forget it. But after watching PatchPro miss a few machines for weeks, I realized you gotta verify everything manually. Now I run a quick check every Monday morning to make sure all agents are alive. It saved me from a few ugly reports.