A Few Things to Consider When Looking for Patch Management Solutions

Cybersecurity has become one of the leading concerns for most enterprises. There are many patch management solutions in the market that can detect vulnerabilities and resolve them automatically. Finding the right solution for your organization is all about striking a balance between the product's features and pricing.

Let's discuss some prominent features you need look for while evaluating a patch management solution.

Automated Patch Management

A feature that has to be present in any patch management solution is automated patch management. As the name suggests, your patch management solution should be capable of patching all your computers automatically without technicians' involvement. Automation is already a mandatory technology that is driving modern enterprises, and that applies to patch management as well. Automating patch detection, download, and deployment is definitely going to ease things for your technicians and improve their overall productivity and efficiency.

Support for Multiple Platforms

The solution should support Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms because you can't go and employ a different solution for each platform. You need a single solution to patch all the computers in your network. Apart from this, if you can find a solution that supports third-party patching, that's even better.

Trying to choose between two or three patching solutions? Look at the number and type of third-party patches those solutions support to see if you can patch your critical business applications from one tool.

Patch Testing

Not all patches are created equal; some new patches can unleash vulnerabilities or disrupt your network, leading to downtime. Thankfully, some patch management solutions allow you to test newly downloaded patches in a test group environment before they are deployed to the actual network. That way, you can make sure a patch is compatible with your network and avoid downtime. When looking for a patching solution, be sure to evaluate one that helps you test patches before deployment.

Auditing

Apart from the overall patch deployment process, your patch management solution should be able to generate reports for patch deployment and help you audit patching in your organization. Without proper auditing capabilities, technicians won't be able to assess the success and failure metrics for the patch management process. Auditing can help you improve your automatic patch deployment, letting you know how you should redefine your deployment policies and schedules.

There are a number of leading solutions in the market that can help in automatically correcting vulnerabilities. Before evaluating patching solutions, look for the patch management features above, sort out two to three solutions, test them out in your organization, and finally choose the one that best fits your budget and network. With cyberattacks evolving rapidly in 2017, it's high time to keep your systems up-to-date and leave no holes unpatched.