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N‑able N‑central Patch Management FAQ
Is there an additional cost for patch management?
Is there an additional cost for patch management?
No. Patch management—including third-party patching—is included as part of N‑central’s base functionality.
What are some patch management best practices?
What are some patch management best practices?
- Take a complete inventory of your customer’s infrastructure to make sure no software has been forgotten.
- Leverage automated patch management whenever possible and develop patch management policies to establish procedural standards for patching.
- Standardize configuration, hardware, and operating systems whenever possible to speed up patch management.
- Prioritize your patches and deploy the most critical ones first.
- Fully read the documentation on patches before deploying—this can help you determine whether or not a potential patch will help or harm your customer’s system.
- Deploy patches during off-peak hours so updates will not disturb your customer’s day-to-day operations.
- Document everything that happens before, during, and after the patching process for compliance and reporting purposes.
Can I control what software is installed during patch management?
Can I control what software is installed during patch management?
Yes. N‑central lets you optimize patch management by detecting software inventory and creating automation polices to remove unwanted software or install new software to right-size your application footprint.
Can I patch on a closed network?
Can I patch on a closed network?
Yes. N‑central lets you automatically create patch caches that can be stored and vetted before being automatically delivered to and deployed on the closed network.
How do I wake devices for patch management?
How do I wake devices for patch management?
N‑central maximizes the number of devices that you can patch by letting you use either Wake-on-LAN or Windows Power Management to wake devices for patching.
What third-party apps do you patch?
What third-party apps do you patch?
You can find a list of N‑central’s growing library of third-party applications supported for patching here.