If you use Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to deploy software and updates for Microsoft products, VMware vCenter Protect Update Catalog expands your solution to deploy updates for 3rd party applications. Get started pushing updates for applications such as Adobe, Apple, and JAVA in just seconds.

SCCM does a great job of distributing software and deploying updates for the latest Microsoft operating systems and Microsoft applications like Office 2010. What about Adobe Reader and hundreds of other vulnerable applications?

vCenter Protect Update Catalog address a major business pain (keeping up with third party updates) and puts time back into IT admin’s schedule.

How? Read on..

Why should you use VMware vCenter Protect Update Catalog (formerly Shavlik SCUPdates)?

  • Total Coverage. vCenter Protect Update Catalog extends SCCM beyond current Microsoft products to patch today’s most attacked applications, including Adobe Reader and Acrobat.
  • Single Workflow. Leverages SCCM workflow – no application to install or agent to deploy. Sync the vCenter Protect Update Catalog with SCCM and you’ll have a single SCCM workflow for deploying updates for Microsoft operating systems, Microsoft applications, AND non-Microsoft applications. Single push. Single reboot. Single set of reports.

How does it work?

Using the SCUP application that is available for SCCM, Microsoft provides a tool to create, import, and publish data to enable patching of applications or other products not supported natively by SCCM. The VMware vCenter Protect Update Catalog is a catalog of data that imports into SCUP to provide the detection and deployment logic to patch other applications. The VMware vCenter Protect Update Catalog catalog of data is imported into SCUP, published, and then synched with SCCM to provide patch detection and deployment to the products like Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, and Mozilla Firefox.

Steps needed to use the vCenter Protect Update Catalog:

  1. Create a self-signing certificate and copy it to the appropriate certificate stores.
  2. Download the vCenter Protect Update Catalog.
  3. Import the vCenter Protect Update Catalog into SCUP.
  4. Select the product to publish and sync to a configured updates server.
  5. Use SCCM to select the products you want to detect and patch.

SCCM does the rest according to your established policies!

Download the vCenter Protect Update Catalog for SCUP 2011 Quick Start Guide to help you use the vCenter Protect Update Catalog.

Certificate

A certificate is needed to use SCUP with SCCM. SCUP provides a wizard to create a self-signed certificate that is used for security in the third party patching process with WSUS and SCCM. The certificate must be installed onto each target system, usually through GPO.

System requirements

System components and requirements for VMware vCenter Protect Update Catalog include:
  • Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0 SP2 or later
  • System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 4.0 SP2 or later (in Native or Mixed mode) Note: SCCM requires a Windows Server platform (2003 Family SP2 or later, or 2008 Family)
  • System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) 2011 or System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) 4.50.1103.000 or later Note: SCUP 2011 requires one of the following platforms: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows 7 SP1, or Windows Vista SP2

Trial version

If you want to try out VMware vCenter Protect Update Catalog you can download a trial version here after registering.