System Updates

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hey guys, I was just wondering what there is available for doing system updates. I have just recently set up a WSUS server to handle the updates but was wondering if there is something newer that does the same job (or better) and naturally for as little cost as possible.

As I understand it, SCCM does this but it would cost a small fortune. I have also seen System Center Essentials which going by the name I would understand it to be free but it also seems to cost.

As usual, any advice appreciated.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I've just started testing SCE 2010 in my lab. From what i've gathered it is the same type of deal as SBS, designed so you don't have to get a dozen tools and different things to do what you need.

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/essentials/sce-pricing-licensing.aspx#Pricing

Not sure how the pricing compares to SCCM etc but it is a really versatile tool combing WSUS, Virtual Machines, Software deployment, Monitoring and all sorts. From what I can remember of WSUS, SCE seems to be easier for managing updates, even if it "is" basically the same thing, it allows you to manage third party updates as well, which I don't think WSUS does.

I've been playing with it for about 2 days straight now, and I like it.

 

SCE is essentially a cut down version of both SCCM and SCOM, it's designed for companies with far fewer servers and clients.

Never having used it before I would probably think it's a somewhat complicated product because it mixes a number of technologies.

 

WSUS is an absolute doddle to install and manage. Until you have 200+ servers and/or 1000+ clients I can't see any reason to use anything else.

 

Is doddle a bad thing or a good thing?

 

Doddle = piece of cake

 

Haha - my bad! Should have realised our chums from across the pond wouldn't know what 'doddle' means!

What BR said - the equivalent saying in the US would be 'a breeze'

 

I thought doddle meant crucifixion. I remember some old guy saying 'crucifixion's a doddle'.

(maybe I shouldn't watch so much Monty Python)

 

Thanks for the advice guys.

Zeb, I have just installed it here and I used it a lot at my old place too. I think it's great but I was just wondering if there was anything 'up to date' now that was also free.

I'm starting to look at the System Center Essentials to do a comparison. If it works out that it has more advantages over WSUS (such as 3rd party software and image deployments) and it would save me time in the future then we would quite possibly pay for it.

 

Is anyone here got SCE?

I am having problems with agents not deploying properly over my test lab in Vmware. Deploying from SCE 2010 to Windows 7 fresh installs connected to the domain. It seems to only full install warning/error free on 1 of the 4 machines.

It's doing my nut in.

 

Sounds like firewall issues, have a look here for port number exceptions.

I would also have a look at WMI Diag to ensure that WMI is working correctly on the workstations.

 

This is still 'Up To Date' as far as MS products are concerned, as long as you sync up the catalogue you will have all the latest MS products on there.