Organizations are increasingly moving to hybrid and cloud environments, and in the next three years it is estimated that 92% of data center traffic will be in the cloud. Companies utilize cloud servers from Amazon, Google, and boutique providers, but effectively patching those servers has become a challenge. Cloud providers do not have access to your servers and therefore are unable to handle patching, leaving you to manage patching and compliance.
At the same time, employees are connecting to networks from multiple devices and multiple locations, and remote workers are increasing, with 43% of employed Americans working remotely during the past year. Keeping your servers and workstations patched in today’s IT environment is difficult. Traditional on premise patching solutions require endpoints be connected to the network inside the firewall or through a company provided secure VPN. Obviously those solutions no longer keep your infrastructure secure. This has led to a new generation of cloud native patch automation systems designed to handle the challenges of modern networks.
On premise patch management
On-premise patch management solutions are used by enterprises looking to introduce some automation into the patching workflow. These systems sit behind a company’s firewall and work to patch internal servers and on-premise devices automatically. While they work fairly well for internal deployments, as noted above, that percentage of your infrastructure is rapidly decreasing. For cloud native access to the network, IT teams had to rely on manual patching to keep those endpoint secure. This is an inefficient, time consuming process that inconvenienced not only IT, but also the end users who just want to be secure without having to have their routine interrupted.
On the server side, configuration management solutions including Chef and Puppet are sometimes used for patching cloud servers, however they require a good deal of manual configuration which can result in mistakes and unpatched systems.
In addition to their lack of support for hybrid infrastructure, on-premise systems are expensive and require ongoing server maintenance and support from third-party providers. IT teams must dedicate resources to configuring and maintaining an on-premise system, and will still need to perform patching of some systems manually. The amount of work involved in this setup often leads to misconfigured systems and missed patches, a risk that is not worth taking. To ensure all devices and servers are patched, companies are now turning to cloud-native patching automation systems.
Cloud-native patch management
Cloud-native patching solutions, like Automox, are built for the needs of hybrid infrastructures are becoming the de facto choice for modern IT organization. Cloud-native systems can effectively patch remote devices, cloud servers, and handle multiple operating systems like Linux, Mac, and Windows from a single dashboard. Because they do not require servers or ongoing maintenance by the end user, cloud-native patch management solutions are more cost effective than on-premise systems and require less time to set up and maintain. They also update themselves to add functionality as needs evolve and new applications are introduced.
Automox for Easy IT Operations
Automox is the cloud-native IT operations platform for modern organizations. It makes it easy to keep every endpoint automatically configured, patched, and secured – anywhere in the world. With the push of a button, IT admins can fix critical vulnerabilities faster, slash cost and complexity, and win back hours in their day.
Grab your free trial of Automox and join thousands of companies transforming IT operations into a strategic business driver.
