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General Information
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September 1, 2006
• Vol.28 Issue 35
Page(s) 20 in print issue
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Multilanguage Patching Support
PatchQuest 4.2 Helps Your SME Keep Up-To-Date
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AdventNet SecureCentral PatchQuest 4.2
Starts at $695 for 100 systems, which includes an annual subscription fee of $300 and a one-time server fee of $395
Web-based, automated software scans the network and distributes necessary patches and software updates
www.adventnet.com
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Managing the ever-growing number of security patches and various product fixes being released for the range of OSes and apps in use today can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive task, especially for multilingual, heterogeneous environments. Software manufacturers publish their own patches, leaving it up to a network administrator to figure out how to get the right patches from the different sources and then get the right patches applied to the appropriate servers and workstations.
To make patch management easier, administrators often employ patch management software. AdventNet’s SecureCentral PatchQuest 4.2 is a multilingual and multiplatform update and patch management package designed for the small to midsized enterprise environment. With the trial version of Professional Edition, admins can manage 10 systems for 30 days; with the permanent license, they can manage an unlimited number of systems. A freeware form is also available that gives users the ability to manage five systems.
SecureCentral PatchQuest 4.2 supports patching Windows, Red Hat, and Debian Linux systems and can do so in up to 26 different languages. Management is done via a Web-based client-to-server communication using HTTPS. PatchQuest automates the distribution and management of patches by scanning the network to identify needed software updates and missing patches and then distributes patches to the vulnerable systems.
The product can run in agent-based or agentless mode. With the agentless configuration, the number of services running on a system is minimized. With the agent-based configuration, more local resources are used, but it’s more efficient in its use of network bandwidth utilization and aids in scaling across larger networks.
Administrators can take advantage of PatchQuest’s automated patch deployment mechanism by creating a baseline set of patches and delivering patches to systems based on groups of systems and a set schedule.
Many of the competitors for patch management apps have overlapping features. One competitor is GFI’s LANguard Network Security Scanner, which will scan for vulnerabilities across multiple platforms but doesn’t have the same multilingual capabilities as SecureCentral PatchQuest (www.gfi.com). Still another competitor is UpdateEXPERT Premium from St. Bernard Software, which supports multiple languages but is limited to the Windows platform (www.stbernard.com). 
by Cynthia Lazzaro
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