ICSI Solutions — PatchLink - Frequently Asked Questions

What is Patch Management?
Patch management is an area of systems management that involves acquiring, testing, and installing multiple system and application patches (code changes) to an administered computer system. Patch management tasks include: maintaining current knowledge of available patches, determining what patches are appropriate for particular systems, ensuring that patches are installed properly, testing systems after installation, and documenting all associated procedures, such as specific configurations required.

Why is Patch Management important?
The economic cost of not patching servers is growing exponentially year after year. Early estimates predict a record $32.8 billion in economic damage due to virus and hacking attacks in August of 2003.

According to data from the FBI and Carnegie Mellon University, more than 90% of all security breaches involve a software vulnerability caused by a missing patch that the IT department already knows about. Gartner estimates that IT managers
now spend up to two hours every day managing patches. In light of these factor’s a patch management solution is no longer a “nice to have” but a “need to have solution”.

What makes PatchLink Update unique?
PatchLink Update 6.0 is a cross-platform software, vendor agnostic, agent based solution. PatchLink Update provides IT administrators with user management functionality that is in great demand, defined as “role-based administration”; fully customizable graphical reporting; as well as the ability to assess patch compliancy baseline by groups of computers, application, or severity capabilities. It is the only solution to have garnered three awards by industry magazines in the past year.

What is the advantage of having an agent based solution?
Agents have several advantages. They increase performance and scalability of enterprise wide software. This accelerates the performance of large-scale deployments. Agents also assist when deploying patch management software to mobile computers. Tools that do not use agents must rely on remote API calls, which must be polled continuously from the server and can be extremely slow and not scalable in large environments. Agents can receive compressed files to conserve bandwidth and, for increased security, also identify if the patch has been tampered with.

Do mobile users have to come into the office to receive patches?
No. PatchLink Update 6.0 allows administrators to deploy patches and software updates to computers, which are not connected to the network at the time of deployment. Once a mobile user connects to the corporate network, PatchLink
Update will automatically scan their system and perform the necessary functions to keep their system up-to-date.

This is done through use of agent technology; it can resume a download when it is disconnected from a network and reconnect at different locations — a necessity for mobile users. Patch tools that lack an agent must download the entire service pack or file every time they are interrupted and rely on a permanent LAN connection to function.

By cross platform, do you mean you support LINUX and UNIX environments as well as Microsoft?
Yes. PatchLink Update 6.0 manages and distributes critical patches that resolve known security vulnerabilities and other stability issues in all Microsoft operating systems (NT, 2000, XP, 2003), UNIX (Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, etc.),
and Novell Netware. PatchLink Update 6.0 is the only patch detection and deployment software available for managing these heterogeneous network environments. Additionally PatchLink Update monitors for patches from a wide variety of applications and antivirus software.

Does PatchLink provide any additional level of security for patches for homegrown applications?
Yes. PatchLink Update 6.0 is bundled with a Patch Development Kit (PDK). This allows you to add digital fingerprints and digital signatures to patches you create and wish to distribute.

What is role-based Administration support?
In response to current government client’s demands for disparate ownership of patch management, PatchLink created role-based administration. This gives system administrators the ease and flexibility of grouping components and distributing patch management ownership across a variety of systems, networks, and physical locations.

Can you expand on the graphical reporting feature?
Absolutely. This feature facilitates the IT administrator’s ability to certify patch compliancy. Additionally, the reporting feature acts as an effective method for debriefing management on an organization’s current patch status and/or network vulnerability. In a nutshell, it allows the administrator to take a snapshot of the networks patch compliancy at any point in time.

Can you tell us about PatchLink, the company?
Since 1991, PatchLink Corporation has been a leading provider of e-business infrastructure management solutions. In 1997 PatchLink introduced their concept of Patch Management and began to research, test, and store patches as they were released. In 1999 a patch repository was created. PatchLink Update is currently installed on over 2 million servers worldwide today.

What is the relationship between ICSI and PatchLink Inc.?
PatchLink, is headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ. They recognize the importance to have a presence and support in other areas of the country, therefore a partnership with ICSI was created.

ICSI is a woman-owned company located in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore, MD metropolitan area. It was founded in 1987. They are a PatchLink platinum reseller and best practices partner with a sales and support team well positioned to cover the east coast for PatchLink.

Who are your customers?
Clients of PatchLink include IT departments at companies of all sizes and those organizations that manage their own technology assets, such as the U.S. Navy; USDA; National Institute of Health; Louisiana State University; Josten's Learning Center; US Bank Corporation; SITA; Northwestern Mutual Life; Federal Highway Administration; U.S. Department of Defense; Nextel; and Readers' Digest, among others.