Patching A Mostly Laptop Environment
We are new to KACE and are currently leveraging our K1000 for Microsoft Windows and Office patching and inventory. We are looking to get into the other features later. We have an environment of about 130 Dell computers most of which (95%) are laptops on docking stations. Having an environment of mostly laptops is an absolute joy to try to patch!
My question for the Ninja community is recommendations, comments, lessons learned, etc. on how to efficiently handle patching computers that move around all the time; i.e. laptops? We currently have patch schedules that run nightly Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and day time schedules that run 11:30 to 2:30 Wednesday and Thursday.
Thanks Everyone!
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Posted by:
Rob_Cliffeild
8 years ago
Even though I use ConfigMGR instead of KACE I have similar but not so drastic issue.
We have a 40/60 split and the latter is the mobile device fleet. Only way I have had success tackling it is by not being so ridged with patching schedules and leave it more open. Instead of you can only install patches from time X to Y on day Z I enable patching on day Z with it being available from X to Y but forced install after Y. The day of the month is always the same for me 3rd Tuesday of each month for Test patching (since two days later at least one gets revised) and Production Patching is the 2nd Tuesday the month after Test (have a touchy environment with old software so long test periods required)
The only thing I will change shortly will be how restarts are handled, currently they are ignored and every Monday at 2:00am its forced (if the system is on), as we have a bigger issue of compliance taking weeks to get to a minimum of 90%. It will be changed to a to bad so sad model of hey you had one 24 hour window to do this without disruption.
Only other thing I do and not sure if KACE has the ability to do the same but after the deadline (force install time) allow the updates to pull from the internet. This helps for people who are using VPN or at home not connected as the system already has a policy telling them to install updates A, B & C.