Keeping servers current.
WHY IT MATTERS
Unpatched servers are exploited, and vulnerabilities are published with working exploits.
WHAT TO ESTABLISH
A patching schedule A test process A maintenance window A rollback plan
WHAT TO PATCH FIRST
Anything internet-facing Domain controllers Anything holding sensitive data
WHAT TO TEST BEFORE BROAD DEPLOYMENT
Patches, on non-production systems.
WHY
Updates occasionally break applications, particularly older ones.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE PATCHING ANYTHING IMPORTANT
Take a backup or snapshot.
WHAT TO MONITOR
Patch compliance across the estate Servers not reporting
WHAT ELSE REQUIRES ROUTINE ATTENTION
Disk space Event logs Backup completion Certificate expiry Antivirus status
WHY CERTIFICATE EXPIRY
It causes complete outages, and automated renewal fails silently more often than expected.
WHAT TO AUTOMATE
Monitoring of all of those.
WHAT TO PLAN
Replacement of servers reaching end of support.
WHY IN ADVANCE
Migration takes longer than expected, and support ends on a fixed date.
