Install Patch Manager and WSUS.

Get the Patch Manager installer:

• Existing SolarWinds customers, access the Patch Manager software from the SolarWinds Customer Portal.

• Evaluators, download your free 14-day evaluation from www.solarwinds.com.

Then use the Patch Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide to access system requirements and planning checklists.

Verify that WSUS is installed on your Windows Server operating system, and then add WSUS to SolarWinds Patch Manager.

Review the Administrator Console and administrator functions.

Become familiar with the various functions of the Patch Manager Administrator Console and status icons when performing administrative tasks, pushing updates, and generating reports.

Users with an Administrator role can manage tasks, clear caches and layouts, view server settings, and change user account details.

Configure the environment.

1. Configure managed resources into management groups and verify who has access by modifying credentials.
2. Adjust email settings to notify when a task is finished in the Administrator Console.
3. Provision the WSUS publishing certificate by configuring managed clients through Group Policy or the Administrator Console.

4. For an advanced configuration, add or remove management groups in Patch Manager to keep information stored for various company segments and maintain a separate database for a testing environment.

   For more configuration options, see Configure Patch Manager.

Publish third-party updates.

1. Download the third-party update packages to the WSUS server.

2. Approve the updates you want to publish.

3. Push the updates to the managed systems.

4. Schedule the published updates to occur for at least two weeks.

5. Check the task history to verify that the update task completed on all targeted systems.

Publish third-party updates.

1. Run the Patch Manager Update Configuration wizard to synchronize the application with the SolarWinds Third Party Updates Pack website. Select the third-party updates from the vendor catalogs and complete the wizard. The wizard creates a task that downloads the updates to the Patch Manager server.

2. Run the Synchronize Server task on the WSUS Server to synchronize the server with the Microsoft Updates website. The task schedules a job that contacts the website, retrieves the latest Microsoft operating system updates, and stores the updates on the WSUS server.

Generate an inventory and reports.

Generate an inventory:

1. Generate a WSUS server inventory to determine the update status of each managed system and populate the WSUS reports.

2. Generate an inventory of the systems you want to manage. The inventory populates theSolarWinds Platform Web Console Web Console and the Patch Manager reports.

Generate reports:

Generate Patch Manager and WSUS inventory reports for your patch compliance audits. All reports can be exported into several common formats, including Microsoft Excel (.xls), Adobe^® PDF (.pdf), and comma-separated values (.csv).

If you integrated Patch Manager with the SolarWinds Platform server, you can generate a Patch Manager report in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.

Schedule the Microsoft and third-party software updates.

Create a task that automatically downloads and installs all needed and approved security and critical updates over a specific time frame—for example, once a day or once a week.