- Published 2/26/2015
- 1st Edition
Focused technical guidance from System Center experts
Part of a series of specialized guides on System Center--this book walks through the tools and resources used to manage the complex task of tracking and applying software updates to client computers in the enterprise using Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2, or later. Written by experts on the Microsoft System Center team and with Microsoft MVP Mitch Tulloch as series editor, this title focuses on maintaining operational efficiency, minimizing security issues, and maintaining the stability of the network infrastructure.
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Table of Contents
Introduction vii
Chapter 1: Understanding software update architecture: server side 1
Fundamentals 1
Configuration items 1
Software update point 2
Multiple software update points 2
Software update point failover process 3
Internet-based software update point 4
Software updates on a secondary site 5
Using an existing WSUS server 5
Software update data 5
The synchronization process 8
Scheduled vs. manual synchronization 8
The software update point features 9
The metadata synchronization 10
Configuration Manager inter-site replication 11
Firewall considerations 12
The flow of binary data 12
Software Update policy deployment 14
The policy creation flow 14
Chapter 2: Understanding software update architecture: client side 17
Software update client architecture features 17
Windows Update Agent 18
Windows Update data store 21
Software update client architecture features 17
Windows Update Agent 18
Windows Update data store 21
Configuration Manager Software Updates Client Agent 21
Windows Management Instrumentation 26
Configuration Manager client cache 34
Software update scanning process 34
Software update installation process 35
Chapter 3: Managing software updates 37
The patch management process model 37
Phase 1: Assess 38
Phase 2: Identify 38
Phase 3: Evaluate and Plan 39
Phase 4: Deploy 40
Understanding software update groups 41
Reporting groups 41
Rollup groups 41
Monthly groups 42
Quarterly and yearly groups 42
Using software update groups 42
Using a phased rollout strategy 44
Using deployment templates 44
Using deployment packages 45
Deploying software updates 48
Automatic deployment of software updates 48
Manual deployment of software updates 49
Understanding superseded and expired updates 52
Understanding the expired updates cleanup process 54
Manually removing expired updates 54
Configuring the maintenance window 54
Chapter 4: Monitoring software updates 57
Compliance accuracy 57
Compliance states from the console 57
Managing client health 59
Tracking compliance data 62
Software update summarization 63
Alerts 64
Monitoring an individual update 65
Monitoring a deployment 67
Deployment Monitoring Tool 69
Built-in and custom reports 73
Software update reports 73
Client status reports 75
Custom reports 75
Chapter 5: Software updates automation 83
Understanding automatic deployment rules 83
Creating automatic deployment rules 84
Automating software update database maintenance 93
Site server software update automation 96
Client software update automation 104
Community resources for software update automation 106