Patch Management

Any good patch management program consists of automatic and manual patching processes and techniques. This chapter outlines several of the risks, concerns, and considerations for building a comprehensive patch management program. The biggest theme throughout has been the classic concept of people, process, and technology. Manual patching is any patching in an environment that requires an individual to download and install a patch, reboot servers based on organizational requirements, or investigate patching for servers that falls outside of normal maintenance windows. As organizations move to larger and more diverse development environments, patching in development environments becomes an even higher priority for operations teams. Most developers use some level of open source software (OSS) within their applications. The chapter also discusses some of the complexities of managing OSS patches internally and the varying responsibilities between development and operations teams.