{"id":6223,"date":"2005-06-08T15:52:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-08T15:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/windowsserver\/2005\/06\/08\/wsus-goes-live-at-teched-2005\/"},"modified":"2022-11-08T10:01:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T18:01:57","slug":"wsus-goes-live-at-teched-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows-server\/blog\/2005\/06\/08\/wsus-goes-live-at-teched-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"WSUS Goes Live at TechEd 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello – I\u2019m Joseph Dadzie, group program manager for Software Distribution technologies in the Windows Server team.\u00a0 My team is currently responsible for the infrastructure behind Windows Update and Microsoft Update, the Windows Server Update Services product, the Automatics feature in Windows, Group Policy and the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS).\u00a0 I\u2019m going to spend most of this blog talking about WSUS [YES!!! it is available today] and the cool things it does to help ease the patch management pain. But before that, a little background about myself.<\/p>\n

I joined Microsoft almost 10 years ago to work on NT 4.0 after a stint as an intern in 1994 working on NT 3.51.\u00a0 During my first 5 years in the company, I focused on Windows OS deployment and OEM preinstall technologies.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve ever installed NT 4 or Windows 2000 using the CD, unattended install or Sysprep, you\u2019ve seen and used some of the technologies I was responsible for.\u00a0 For NT 3.51 veterans, do you remember CPS?\u00a0 Anyway, after Windows 2000 shipped I joined the Windows Update team to use Internet technologies to broadly distribute software and keep PCs always up to date.<\/p>\n

Now to WSUS \u2013 How did the project start, why is it important, and other stuff?<\/p>\n

In 2000, we had a Windows Update site but it was only focused on consumers.\u00a0 The primary corporate solution was SMS but it was targeted at larger enterprises, so small and medium size organizations didn\u2019t really have a solution for managing patches. Some of my colleagues and I made a proposal to build a corporate version of Windows Update with the ultimate goal of making update and software distribution ubiquitous and easy to use, i.e., essentially expanding the Windows Update content and federating it into corporations.\u00a0 We called the concept \u201cIndustry Update.\u201d\u00a0 The Code Red and Nimda viruses that came out in early 2001 made the need for this federated solution even more apparent.\u00a0 The patches for the vulnerabilities that got exploited had been out for a year but lots of customers hadn\u2019t deployed it.\u00a0 A small team of the Windows Update team was put together to go build this solution in July 2001 \u2013 Software Update Services (SUS) 1.0 was born.\u00a0 At various stages, we called it Federated WU, Corporate WU, WU Corporate Edition, etc.\u00a0 The goal was to get Windows patching under control and then extend to all of Microsoft.\u00a0 The timelines were quite tight, but the customer value was great so the small team spent some good quality time in our offices, including long nights and weekends, working on SUS 1.0.\u00a0 We shipped the first beta in December 2001, second beta in February 2002 and released it live in May 2002.\u00a0 To date, we\u2019ve had over 1.6 million downloads of SUS 1.0, with over 200,000 installations across a wide range of customers \u2013 small, medium, large and have built a great community of experts and enthusiasts out there.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t seen it, check it out<\/a>. Pretty nice.<\/p>\n

Right after that we kicked off the SUS 2.0 project with goals to address some of the shortcomings in SUS 1.0, like reporting and the inability to patch key applications like Office.\u00a0 This was a particularly challenging effort since it required re-design and re-writing of key components of the infrastructure while at the same time maintaining the simplicity and \u201cit just works\u201d model of SUS 1.0.\u00a0 Most SUS 1.0 customers tell us they spend less than 1hr a week managing their SUS server! \u00a0We also had to align multiple internal product groups around the goals and coordinate timelines, schedules, etc. which increased the challenges but we were up to it.\u00a0 We were hoping to ship the product by early 2004. However some key events occured in 2003 that caused us to re-set those schedules – the Slammer virus in February and Blaster in August.<\/p>\n

A patch management taskforce (that I got the luck to lead) was set up in February that year\u00a0to look at how to address patch management from a holistic perspective.\u00a0 You can see the results here<\/a>.\u00a0 One of the key recommendations was to unify the patch management toolset on a common infrastructure and have a range of solutions leveraging the infrastructure for all customer segments.\u00a0 WSUS addresses that key recommendation and is personally an exciting milestone for me and the other folks who have been working on this project in one form or the other since 2000.<\/p>\n

WSUS provides both a solution and an infrastructure. It enables the Microsoft Update (MU) service to cover one stop patching for consumers.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t tried it yet, go here<\/a> and set it up now.\u00a0 Do it for all your PCs at home, your relatives’ and neighbors’ PCs. It will save you \u201ctech support\u201d calls.\u00a0\u00a0WSUS enables corporations to have an easy to use patch management solution for Microsoft software.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have all the Microsoft products yet but they will be coming soon.\u00a0 Office and Exchange patches are available now.\u00a0 SQL is also supported.\u00a0 It provides SMS and MBSA to have a consistent scan engine for patching \u2013 the days of one Microsoft tool telling you, “you need a patch” when the other says “you don\u2019t” are gone.\u00a0 The MBSA and SMS releases will be out within the next month or so.\u00a0 This is just awesome!<\/p>\n

WSUS is great for the following reasons:<\/p>\n