Changes that take place when Software Updates have been revised

Products

• Patch Management Solution

Issue/Introduction

Detailed Patch Management Solution changes that take place when Software Updates have been revised by the vendor.

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Patch Management Solution 8.x

Resolution

When the Vendor (e.g. Microsoft, Adobe etc.) revises an update, the distribution points and code base for the package will be changed. 

Review the descriptions of the following settings to manage this within Patch Management:

1. Automatically revise Software Update policies after importing patch data:

• This will revise the Software Update Package by downloading the Software Bulletin and recreating the packages for the revised Software Updates at the end of downloading the cabinet files from SolutionSam.com. This will also ensure the Software Update Policy remains enabled but the Revised Software Updates will be disabled.
• Advisory: If this is not enabled, the Software Update Policy will be completely disabled. The Software Update packages will no longer have the appropriate associations to the Software Update Policy, nor will they have the necessary snapshot or codebase associations. 
  • The revised Software Updates will need to be manually downloaded via the Patch Remediation Center (PRC) to restore this functionality. This is done on the SMP Console > Action > Software > Patch Remediation Center: Highlight the revised bulletin, right-click / Recreate Package, and this will download the revised updates.
• Note: Once this is enabled; it will merely only enable the process moving forward. Any Software Update Policies and Packages created prior to enablement will not be affected.

2. Enable distribution of newly added Software Updates:

• This will enable the Advertisement on the Advance Tab of each Software Update Policy to ensure this ‘newly added’ Software Update (e.g. it is now a version 2 or v3 etc. of the same Update) is being deployed to the environment. 
• Advisory: If this not enabled, the Advertisement on the Software Update Policy > Advance tab will remain disabled for any revised Software Updates.
  • The individual Advertisements will need to be manually enabled on each of the affected Software Update Policies on the Advance tab.
• Note: Once this is enabled, it will only enable the distribution of Software Update Advertisements moving forward so please view the attached report to see which Advertisements have been disabled. This report can be implemented via the Console in a custom SQL Report or ran directly through the SQL Server Management Studio against the Symantec Database.

3. Disable all superseded Software Updates:

• This will enable the system to disable the Software Update package associations in the database and the Software Update Advertisements on the Software Update Policy > Advanced tab, for each Superseded Software Update.
• Advisory: If this is not enabled, it will add more load to the PMImport running the Revise check on all Software Update Policies. This is redundant for Superseded Software Updates as the Patch Filter is designed to not target anything Superseded by the Vendor, for the IsApplicable=TRUE rule logic will always target for the latest version of the Software Update provided by the Vendor. 

Informational: Once enabled, these processes only affect the Software Update Policies moving forward. This process is not retroactive and will not enable the advertisements for revised Software Updates prior to this setting being enabled.