Systems Management

We have about 6,000 workstations in our environment, using a variety of versions of Java. Some departments are able to use the most current version; others are limited to an older version for various reasons.

In addition to trying to move as many users as possible to the latest version, we're also trying to enforce that everyone use a packaged version (with updates disabled), and then deploy updates on a scheduled basis.

A problem at the moment is simply knowing our environment. I think we can use SCCM to tell us how many different versions of Java are being used, but does anyone know of a way to tell what applications are being accessed by Java? Not sure if this is something we could accomplish with SCCM or possibly SCOM, or if there's a 3rd-party tool that would do the trick.

That's the critical piece for us to understand before we attempt to do any sort of upgrade, as we don't have full insight into how Java is being used by all the various business groups.

One other option I though of that seems a bit clunky would be to break down the environment into small groups (specifics of that to be determiend), then identify test users, then deploy a new version of Java to them and have them report if anything breaks. If not, upgrade that full group, move on to next group. A potential administrative headache, no doubt, managing who's tested, who hasn't, who can get upgraded to a new version and who can't, but I reckon that will be an inherent part of the process until we get a better understanding of the environment as a whole.

If anyone has a suggestion for a better way of doing this, I'd love to hear it.  Thanks!