SCCM Third-Party Patch Management Automation | Configuration Manager | ConfigMgr? SCCM Third-Party Software Update Support without SCUP Patch management is an important function for all admins. We can segregate patch management into two parts.
The first one is Microsoft patches, and these patches can be installed flawlessly with SCCM/ConfigMgr or WSUS.
[Related Posts – SCCM Third-Party Software Update Support without SCUP & How Tedious for SCCM Admins to Patch 3rd Party Applications via SCUP]
SCCM Third-Party Patch Management Automation
The second one is non-Microsoft (3rd party applications) patching. The second one is also very critical for organizations. I have seen loads of organizations struggling to do 3rd party patch management. How do you perform patch management in your organization?
I have come across questions from SCCM admins about how to manage patches of non-Microsoft applications using SCCM. Though they can deploy these patches using WSUS, it takes loads of time to research for patches, then deploys the 3rd party patches after writing the script.
Another solution is to create packages of 3rd party patches and deploy them through SCCM/ConfigMgr. But this is not a one-time solution for them, and it does not always work perfectly for all the users. SCCM Third-Party Patch Management Automation | Configuration Manager | ConfigMgr?
There are a lot of tools in the market that can help SCCM deploy third-party patches, but not all of them are reliable or feasible. The one tool that stands out of all of them is ManageEngine Patch Connect Plus, which is perfect for ConfigMgr/SCCM environments and can do the best job in deploying vulnerabilities present in the enterprise environment.
Some of the reasons why we should prefer Patch Connect Plus:
- The highest number of supported applications: It supports over 250 applications which include almost all applications that are used in an enterprise. None of the other tools in the market supports more applications than Patch Connect Plus, as most of the tools support only around 100 applications.
- A large catalog of supported applications is really important for any patch management tool to combat all system vulnerabilities in the network; otherwise, those vulnerabilities still exist in the enterprise environment and provide attackers with opportunities to exploit.
- Uses SCCM infrastructure and console: Most of the tools ask their customers to set up infrastructure in their network, whereas Patch Connect Plus uses the SCCM infrastructure you would’ve already set up.
- Also, you will be using the same SCCM console for deployment too. Hence overcoming the requirement of learning about a new console and infrastructure altogether for just third-party patch management. The following figure shows how it works:
- Affordable price: Patch Connect Plus is priced lower than all the similar products I’ve come across. Since enterprises have invested a significant amount in Microsoft SCCM, they expect the ROI to be high from their investment, and this product helps them do just that. Click here to find out the pricing of the product.
- Easy and quick setup: The setting up of the product just took 5 mins for me! Follow the easy steps in the following video, and you are good to go- Video link. The support for the product is also helpful and responsive and helped me publish all patches with ease.
Try out the product, it comes with a free trial for 1 month! – Download now! SCCM Third-Party Patch Management Automation | Configuration Manager | ConfigMgr?
Author
Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is a blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. E writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc…
250+ really wonderful number of applications to patch them on regular basis. Very interesting and love to practice once
Glad to see you are interested with this.
I explore something in LAB, recorded document and posted here.
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCCM-3rd-Party-Patch-4691e952
very useful.
Thank you 😉
Thnks gotta give it a try txs for the post Anoop,
They definately have to give a second thought on the price front.
We can hire 2 Packaging + 1 SCCM guys n pay there one year salary in that price 😛 (got 25000+ systems to manage)
Does that mean you already got the pricing from them? 🙂
Ya too costly going to stick to hiring packagers
Long term, the packagers won’t be very cheap. And they can always make manual errors. We need a manager for packagers. Automation is the main motive here 😀
3rd party packagers can make mistakes too, I have personally seen from ga main stream vendor. Which begs the question they lack proper QA testing
Yes, I agree. But my point was more towards some other aspects. When an internal team mate makes a mistake is entirely different when a vendor has a bug in their product 🙂
Can Patch Connect Plus patch OSX 3rd party application, since SCCM now can enroll Macs?