Review: Patch Management Solution Offers VARs Recurring Income

That situation spawned companies such as Patchlink, which brings a centralized, managed patching process to heterogeneous networks. The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based vendor's latest product, Patchlink Update Version 6.3, brings new features to the patch management space and can help Patchlink build up its channel program by providing a much-needed solution that can boost partners' profits.

For VARs looking to sell patch management products, one question remains: Who will buy patch management solutions if most of today's products already include auto patching capabilities? The answer: most any enterprise.

Free or bundled patching tools included with software are minimally effective at best. Bundled tools are usually for a single vendor's products, and the tools offer little accountability. Also, many of the bundled tools lack auditing and management capabilities.

Multiply those problems by the dozens of mission-critical applications found in today's enterprises, and you have a recipe for disaster. Administrators won't know what the latest patches are and who patched what and when. The hours wasted tracking down that information could be costly and impact network support. What's more, given today's regulatory compliance demands, not unifying patch management could be a poor business decision at best or an avenue to fines and legal problems at worst.

Patchlink Update 6.3 addresses those thorny issues. The product centralizes the patching process for companies ranging from a few nodes to a few hundred nodes. Out of the box, it offers patching capabilities for more than 40 products. Most major software vendors are covered by Patchlink's processes, and VARs will find support for Windows, Linux, Unix, Macintosh and Novell operating systems, along with support for various other software and hardware products.

Patchlink Update 6.3 installs on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 system and requires Microsoft SQL Server 2005 along with the Microsoft .Net Framework. The product works as a client/server application and requires a client component, or agent, installed on the systems to be managed. Patchlink includes agents for Macintosh, HP-UX, AIX, Windows 98/NT/2000/XP/Server, Netware, SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux and Sun Solaris.

Once installed, Patchlink Update functions constantly, monitoring client systems and communicating with Patchlink's Web-based update service. On a daily basis, PatchLink checks major software vendors for new vulnerabilities. When a vendor releases a patch, PatchLink creates a digital fingerprint package that identifies the unique characteristics of each patch, such as applicable operating systems and file attributes.

PatchLink then pretests each patch package on its appropriate operating systems and languages for quality assurance and, if all is well, releases the patch into the PatchLink Repository. The content is securely delivered to the PatchLink Update server via a 128-bit encrypted VeriSign trusted connection, along with RSA BSAFE encryption.