RE: MS Software Update Service

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From: Jared Kelly <JKelly@askjeeves.com>
To: "Starks, Brad" <BStarks@co.marin.ca.us>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 12:14:10 -0800

Brad-

I completed an evaluation of SUS for my company a couple of months ago. The
main problem I see with it is that it is lacking in several features that
most enterprises would require for a full rollout of this solution. It lacks
grouping functions, has no reporting functions, no varying levels of
administration, and only provides for updates to Microsoft products. Once an
update is approved it is made available to your entire farm which you may or
may not want. The logging also is very basic and requires you to sift
through IIS logs looking for HTTP gets from the target host. You can't tell
from the server whether a patch has been correctly installed or not and it
does not offer a centralized way to back out of a patch application. All in
all it didn't come close to meeting our needs.

I've been working with Gibraltar's Everguard product now for a couple months
on an extended evaluation and I'm really impressed with the functionality of
the product. They still are lacking in a couple features but we've been
working directly with their engineering team to get them into the release
schedule. The reporting is fantastic on it and it offers back out
capabilities, and also supports Linux and Solaris. The system is fully SSL
based for client security and your vulnerability information is stored
behind your firewall. It also offers a complete software inventory solution.
More information on Everguard can be found at http://www.gibraltarsoft.com/.
Feel free to write me for direct contact information.

Hope this helps, if even a little.

Jared

-----Original Message-----
From: Starks, Brad [mailto:BStarks@co.marin.ca.us]
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 4:43 PM
To: 'focus-ms@securityfocus.com'
Subject: MS Software Update Service

Hi everyone,

Microsoft's Software Update Service has been out for awhile (they've
recently released a service pack for it, too) and I was curious as to what
folks think about it. If you're using this technology, are you happy with
it? How well does it suit your needs? Is it comparable to other solutions
like Update Expert, Hfnetchk Pro, Net Octopus, etc.?

In addition, has anyone used the Feature Pack for SMS that contains the SUS
(as well as all kinds of additional) components? How does that compare to
the standard SUS?

Thanks in advance,

Brad Starks
IST Security Team
County of Marin

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