[BESAdmin-Announcements] *NEW* Offline Virtual Machine Patching

[Announcements for BES Administrators]

IBM is pleased to announce the release of Offline Virtual Machine 
Patching. 


Reason for Update: 

The Market leading Tivoli Endpoint Manager for Patch Management solution v 
8.2 now includes virtual patch management for vmware ESXi virtual 
machines, hypervisor host audit and "offline patch" capabilities. (VMware 
ESXi 4.0, 4.1, and 5.0 hypervisors and VMware ESX 4.0 and 4.1).
Keeping a huge number of endpoints properly updated with the latest 
patches is a major challenge in many organizations. Patch installation is 
time consuming, and new patches are continually released by vendors, 
creating an uncomfortably high percentage of endpoints aren?t properly 
patched at any given point in time. This in turn opens the door to all 
sorts of potential problems, ranging from application/OS instability, 
diminished performance to outright security breaches. 
The focus on cloud computing and virtual technologies means that virtual 
technologies are increasingly being leveraged in production to either host 
or supplement business critical applications. Some of the benefits of 
virtualization ?such as higher server utilization, faster deployment and 
the ability to more quickly clone, copy and deploy servers?are partially 
offset by the proliferation of virtual machines and the associated risks 
to your organization. In addition to traditional physical systems, 
hypervisor host servers and their associated virtual machines need to be 
carefully monitored and managed, because even "offline" virtual machines 
can pose a threat to an organization. For example, in development and test 
environments, virtual machines may be used for a relatively short test 
cycle but often spend weeks or even months in a dormant state waiting for 
the next round of testing. Restarting these dormant virtual machines 
without applying the latest critical updates can leave an organization in 
a vulnerable state. 
The bottom line: As the number of endpoints increases, so do the security 
risks. Add to that the fact that hackers are becoming more sophisticated 
and complex, and you can see why IT managers can't sleep at night.  Tivoli 
Endpoint Manager provides a better way to manage all endpoints, by 
automatically enforcing patch compliance across all devices. The result is 
faster, more thorough patch management, lower operational costs and 
improved security and compliance rates.

Actions to Take: 

Subscribe to: 
Patches for ESXi version 15
and 
Virtual Endpoint Manager version 14


To see ESXi VMs and Hosts report in to the console:

Please refer to the User's Guide on how to set this up. 

Additional links: 

http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v26r1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.tem.doc_8.2%2Fwelcome%2Fwelcome.html 



Application Engineering Team
Tivoli Endpoint Manager
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