Categorize Your Equipment

Categorize Your Equipment

Whether you apply updates automatically or manually, and with or without testing, depends on the needs of that category of equipment. Within your organization you have at least the four different categories of equipment described in this topic. You should choose the right update management strategy for each category of equipment in your organization.

Basic Hosting Servers

When the server configuration falls within the scope of testing Microsoft performs before an update is made available through the Microsoft Update online service, you can use Automatic Update to install the update on a schedule you specify. You can optionally use a WSUS server at your facility and configure this category of equipment to download updates from that server rather than Microsoft Update.

Advanced Hosting Servers with SLAs

When the server configuration falls outside the scope of testing Microsoft performs on updates you should perform your own testing. And, depending on server usage or if the service-level agreement (SLA) dictates when the server may be rebooted for maintenance, you should manually install the updates. This approach will use multiple Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) servers (for testing and distribution) and will require staff for testing and update installation. If you need more comprehensive capabilities than WSUS provides, you may decide to use Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) instead of WSUS.

Critical Infrastructure

You should carefully test each update before manually installing it on this category of equipment. This approach will use multiple WSUS servers (for testing and distribution) and will require staff for testing and update installation. If you need more comprehensive capabilities than WSUS provides, you may decide to use Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) instead of WSUS.

Internal Desktops and Servers

When the desktop or server configuration falls within the scope of testing Microsoft performs before an update is made available through the Microsoft Update online service, you can use Automatic Update to install the update on a schedule you specify. You can optionally use a WSUS server at your facility and configure this category of equipment to download updates from that server rather than Microsoft Update. You may decide that some of the desktops or servers in this category are configured for manual rather than automatic updating.