Server patch management for multiple operating systems data centers

Server patch management for multiple operating systems data centers

The Data Center Administrator is playing a game that never ends, that is, chasing servers for patches or updates. When your environment has both Linux and Windows servers, the game becomes more difficult.

As we all know, Microsoft's Tuesday patch allows Windows administrators to spend a lot of valuable time processing related transactions and seamlessly push updates and patches from Microsoft to the infrastructure of the data center. In addition to the routine transactions that are executed every month, you must ensure that the server patches and updates can run reliably, at least not as a hindrance to non-Microsoft products such as Apache Web servers and Linux workstations. Server patch management has a completely different life cycle from that of a traditional enterprise network in a variable data center.

In fact, you can keep your heterogeneous network environment stable. One type of changes will not affect the other.

Cross-platform scenarios-taking Linux and Windows as examples-operating system updates are encountered during management. In a typical heterogeneous network, many workstations and file servers communicate with each other through the Message Block (SMB) protocol. If Microsoft deploys SMB-related security patch updates, it may affect Linux servers connected to Windows servers with updated patches through Samba. Simply put, data center employees may only concern about Windows, but do not consider the impact of this process on Linux infrastructure.

Server Patch management tools can solve these problems, such as Lumension's Patch Manager DataCenter. The PMDC provides administrators with a centralized dashboard that ensures that updates and Patches Obtained by Microsoft do not affect non-Windows Services in the data center.

Patch Management Method

Data center updates and patch management are not as simple as purchasing appropriate tools. Just like most things in the IT industry, people cannot be ignored when IT comes to implementing data center updates.

Having high-end tools can be a huge boost, but there is still room for human intuition. For example, if Cisco releases a security update for a certain type of network switch, IT team cannot simply install the update and let the Patch Management Software solve the remaining issues. The best way is to copy patches and updates to an independent lab room so that administrators can perform drills in different scenarios. In this case, the network administrator can check whether the update has an adverse effect on the Vlan configuration or network configuration on the newly updated network switch. The administrator can also test adjacent network devices, such as files and database servers. After updating and passing the isolated lab environment test, the network administrator will be more confident when applying the data to the on-site infrastructure.

Although software can assist with patch and change management, operating system and network device updates, each IT expert must carefully confirm the test results before formal implementation. If handled properly, the IT department can find an effective balance between automation and human interaction.