Baselines? How is your company using them?

Usage and Config Patch
1

(imported topic written by jamieorth91)

Since I am new to BigFix I would like to get some feedback from the user base on how you are using baselines for patch management.

For example, in our setup we are trying to have all the MS08, MS07, etc… patches in their own baseline. Now, we only have a few oddball pc’s that still need anything prior to an MS08 level patch, but I thought it was a good idea to have them setup just to show anything that may fall out of scope.

As for relevance, are you doing anything special to differentiate between servers and workstations?

How are you taking action on the baseline? We have implemented (or trying to) a power policy and would like to use WOL to wake up workstations, say at midnight, have the baseline action from 12:10 to 3 am or so, and then shutdown the workstations after.

Servers of course are a little different, and we have under 100, so we are looking at them in a more manual approach. The BigFix admin will schedule what is needed on a case by case basis. Some servers can be restared during our maintenance window, while a handfew are restarted manually.

Also, are you putting anything besides patches in a baseline? What about power profiles, client settings, etc? And if so, how do you set the action?

Thanks in advance!!!

Jamie Orth

AVP Business Continuity, MIDFLORIDA FEDERAL CREDIT UNION

jamieorth@MIDFLORIDA.com

2

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hi Jamie,

I think your best answers will come from other BigFix users, but I can add a couple key points:

  • Take a look at “OS Type” here: http://support.bigfix.com/bes/misc/retrievedproperties.html#OS (this property is also included by default in the “OS Type - Windows” property of the “Operating System Information” of the BigFix Inventory and License Fixlet site).

  • Instead of using scheduled wake-on-lan, consider using scheduled wake-up times using “Wake-from-Standby Scheduling Wizard” in the Power Management Fixlet site.

Ben