http://www.insystek.com

Westar Energy Topeka, KS – Critical update service enhances performance and security. The use of NSMC Control Center (formerly known as Asset Management and Software Distribution) is enabling Westar Energy to ensure timely non-intrusive distribution of key security patches and system updates.

“The problem with many of the Internet Explorer security patches and service packs is they require a system restart after being applied. This creates a problem for system administrators that are trying to remotely manage their customer base. Forced reboots, even when scheduled, are at best intrusive and at worst can cause the loss of data should the end user forget and leave something open,” according to Russell Dyke. “We needed a better solution and Insystek, Inc. was quick to step up to the plate.”

The method chosen by Westar Energy employs a “Critical Updates” folder on the Start Menu that contains links to the NSMC distributed security patches and system updates. The end user can then process the patches and updates on their schedule. This allows the end user to control the timing of the system restart for their workstation. This continues the non-intrusive theme provided by NSMC, which operates without requiring a client on the target workstation.

The use of NSMC Control Center provides the asset management necessary to accurately target the workstations requiring software distribution. The NSMC integration into the Microsoft operating system provides accurate display of workstation connectivity. This along with their software distribution queuing methodology that holds scheduled distributions for workstations that are not currently connected until their next login, allows for timely and accurate software distributions.

“One of the features we were pleasantly surprised with was the ability to perform ‘checkpoint restart’.” This is a built-in feature for the NSMC Scheduler service providing for automatic restart from point of failure should the service loose connectivity or need to be restarted. “This feature allowed us to maximize the throughput on the NSMC Scheduler service without having to worry about overloading and having to start over from scratch.”