Microsoft Recommends Throttling Back SUS For SP2

Microsoft on Wednesday posted advice for enterprises relying on Software Update Services (SUS) to prevent network slowdowns and server bottlenecks as they update thousands of PCs to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

SUS, which is a free component of Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server, is one of Microsoft's patch management tools, and is designed to streamline the process of deploying critical updates and service packs to servers and desktops.

The problem with SP2, said Microsoft, is its 270MB size, and the resulting network traffic as clients download the update from internal servers. "SUS administrators need to consider the impact on internal network traffic and on the machine on which the SUS server is running," said Microsoft in an online bulletin.

Enterprises with more than 2,000 Windows desktops, said Microsoft, should think about using one of several tactics to spare the network grief. Among them, a manual "limited-time approval technique that pares down the maximum number of clients that "see" SP2 on their download lists.

Other approaches, said Microsoft, could include throttling bandwidth -- restricting the maximum bandwidth that SUS can consume -- using the Internet Information Services server or BITS 2.0.

Microsoft's advice is available on its TechNet Web site.

This story courtesy of TechWeb.