University takes patching from a full-time job to an hour a week

The Financial Information Systems (FIS) department at the University of Pittsburgh supports the business and financial areas of the school, including the CFO’s office, payroll, purchasing, general accounting, housing, food services, parking, and transportation. Within FIS, the Technical Services team supports the IT needs of more than 800 university employees, providing application development, client and server computing, and customer support for anything tech related. The team has been recognised as No. 1 in higher education for its customer service.

Industry: Education

Employees: 800

Website: http://www.pitt.edu

Products

Patch for MEM

Patching operating systems is a common practice, but according to the National Vulnerability Database, 86 percent of vulnerabilities attack third-party software not part of the OS. Ivanti Patch for MEM maximises an organisation’s investment in Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM) and Intune to reduce security risks from unpatched, non-Microsoft third-party applications.

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Security depends on patch compliance

The Technical Services team manages all its patch updates centrally via Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM). But for some of its most widely used applications—non-Microsoft software such as Adobe, Java, Apple, Google and Mozilla—the team previously had to detect, build, and test patches manually before pushing out each one individually with configuration manager. For just three to five applications, the team could easily log up to 10 hours a week. Across them all, it was almost a full-time job.

Benefits to University of Pittsburgh

A simple way to push third-party updates

Technical Services can now leverage its investment in Configuration Manager to automate the patch process for all its applications.

Up and running quickly

Ivanti Patch for MEM requires no application to instal or agent to deploy. The team needed just a couple of days to get it up and running.

Application updates, fast and easy

Updating all applications takes about an hour each week—previously it was nearly a full-time job.

Both patch detection and deployment

Ivanti Patch for MEM keeps the team apprised of all application updates in one place with weekly emails.

More time to focus on customers

Ivanti Patch for MEM has freed team members from nonstop patching, which at times required them to work weekends.

Faster, easier patching

Technical Services manages all Microsoft and non-Microsoft updates in one place. Updates are rolled out sooner. With less time on updates, the team can focus on other demands, such as maintaining its award-winning customer service and implementing new technologies.

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