Mass patching Windows servers

[therealdeal74]

Forgive me if this is a repost of a previously asked question, I searched and couldn't find anything.

Do you guys use any special tools to coordinate the patching of Windows servers? The problem is that you can overwhelm the server when say you've got 20 VMs and all 20 are trying to install Windows 2003 SP2. Staggering the patching sequences is very tedious.

Any other suggestions?

TIA

[esiebert7625]

There really is not a component included with VMware to do this. External patch solutions are the best method, check out Microsoft WSUS.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wsus/default.aspx

[waynegrow]

I agree. We have 200+ Windows Server (physical and virtual) and WSUS works great.

[VirtualNoitall]

Hello,

As the others have said WSUS is a good option. I Fyou need to stagger then you can look to something like MS SMS or using Group policy and placing servers is different OUs with different patching times.