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What is Patch Management and Why Do I Need It?
IT services providers in Houston employing patch management solutions will help you ensure your systems are properly up to date. Even if you’ve got the latest upgrade straight from the manufacturer, bugs and vulnerabilities will be continuously discovered over the life of the software. If you just install it and leave it, you’re going to contend with errors that are avoidable, and vulnerabilities which could have been corrected.
Did you know you can be hacked through an SMB port? That’s exactly what happened in May of 2017 to thousands of companies infected with the WannaCry ransomware. It worked like this: the NSA built a back door into some computers which was revealed in March, giving hackers time to design and deploy a worm. In response, a patch was quickly deployed to correct the issue. Those businesses that took the software patch were protected against WannaCry. Those who didn’t faced a pernicious bug that affected businesses in over 150 countries.
Even if you’re able to shut down your systems and reboot using a BDR (Backup and Data Recovery) solution, you’ll still have some small quotient of downtime wherein productivity declines substantially. The best BDR can’t totally curtail associated costs like that, and an hour can be worth tens of thousands of dollars to even a medium-sized business.
Preserving Your Business
Having patch management securely provided through IT services providers in Houston that have deep experience in the field could be that which preserves your business from collapse. Something else to consider is that it’s very difficult to apply the patches individually. Unless you’re a very small business, the task of properly updating all systems as they need it throughout your businesses network is a task that’s nigh-impossible to do on your own. From the servers to end user portals, you or whatever tech team you’ve hired will be continuously treading water, and valuable resources which could have been used for progressive infrastructural optimization will always be tied up.
There are patch management software solutions and ways in which you can automate this process so that the difficulty is diminished. However, managing the management software additionally requires time and energy internally, unless you decide to go the outsourced route.
Multiple Advantages
If you outsource IT management, you get more than one type of service solution. Well, if you’re maximizing the use of your MSP. You’ll get:
- Project management
- Patch management
- Cloud computing solutions
- Network management
…and many other tech benefits as you need them. Additionally, the cost of outsourced IT service is offset by the savings your business is able to absorb. You will have better security solutions, and if you incrementally phase out those systems which don’t require in-house facilitation, you can save tens of thousands annually. Consider outsourcing end user portals through a BYOD strategy, having patch management ensure their security, and projecting a DaaS (Desktop as a Service) application to for remote employee access. You can cut the cost of office space, device acquisition, travel, and more.
Safeguarding Your System
IT services in Houston through ICS can manage patch updates proactively and securely, while additionally providing a bevy of other IT solutions. Contact us to optimize operations and securely conserve resources.
Further reading
ICS is a Texas-based 40-year-old technology company specializing in Managed IT, VoIP, Video Conferencing and Video Surveillance solutions for US and International businesses. ICS has over 4000 regional installations and specializes in multi-site businesses between 25 and 2500 employees. ICS’s customers enjoy the experience of ICS’s Total Care program which provides clients flat fee services with obsolescence and growth protection. Whether a customer elects to deploy their IT, Video Conferencing or VoIP in the cloud or on the customer’s premise, ICS can provide a full turn-key solution for our clients under one flat monthly fee.