Select Page

As I wrote in a previous post – one of the most important new features of ZENworks 10 Configuration Management is the System Updates feature.

This allows administrators to automatically download, approve and deploy ZENworks patches and updates across their servers and workstations.

Written at: Winchester, England

First things first – make sure your primary servers have enough disk space. We recommend 5GB of free space in the location where you installed ZENworks Configuration Management.

You can find System Updates under the Configuration Tab. You can review available updates; and then select Download Update:

SNAG-0708

The download will start; depending on the size of the update (this one is 800MB in size!) it could take some time to download.

SNAG-0673  

One completed the download will be bundled (or inserted into the ZCM content system) and then syncronised with the other Primary Servers:

SNAG-0677

SNAG-0678

SNAG-0680

The next step is to release this update into your ZENworks Configuration Management Zone.

It is recommended that you use System Update Staging Groups to carefully deploy to test servers and test workstations before deployment to live servers. You should always make sure you have good Change Management and Release Management in place before doing any update.

Here are some System Update Staging Groups:

SNAG-0674

To release the update it first needs to be Authorised. Click on Status Details under System Update Overview; then select the System Update and make it Authorised.

SNAG-0682

Next step – allow the update to be deployed. You can make this automatic, going through each Stage automatically; update all machines immediately or to manually step through.

SNAG-0684

You should see the Update Status change:

SNAG-0685

SNAG-0688

SNAG-0689  

It’s that simple.

There’s a lot more you can do with System Updates – including building in notification of updates being available, notification of success or failure between stages and showing the status.

I hope this gives some insight into the new methods of update we are delivering with ZENworks Configuration Management. Our aim is to make your systems easy to manage – and use ZENworks to update and patch itself.

As always – comments welcome.