Windows Server Update Services provides a solution for businesses that need to deploy updates to systems on the network. It provides administrators with a finer granularity of control when it comes to installing updates on servers and workstations. For example, only updates that have been approved by you can be made available for installation. In this series of articles I will outline the steps you need to complete in order to install and configure Windows Server Update Services on a computer running Microsoft Windows Server 2003. The series assumes that you have some working knowledge of Windows Update and Automatic Updates.

Windows Server Update Services
Deploying updates through WSUS provides administrators with many advantages. One such advantage is that it gives administrators an opportunity to download updates to a specific server on the network and deploy them within a test environment before approving them for installation in the production environment. If you have ever installed updates, you are probably aware that installing them does not always produce positive results. So this gives administrators a chance to see the effects of installing an update before it is deployed to systems on the network.

There are two different components to a software update infrastructure that uses WSUS. You have at least one server on the network running WSUS and you have your automatic update clients as outlined below.

• Windows Server Update Services server - This component is installed on a computer running Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003. Whenever updates are available on the Windows Update Site, the WSUS server can automatically download them (or they can be downloaded manually by an administrator). The updates can then be tested, published for users, and installed on systems configured to use the WSUS server.

• Automatic Update Clients - This component is installed on systems running Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, and Windows XP so they can connect to the server on the internal network running WSUS.

In the next installment of this series I will present you with the hardware and software requirements for installing WSUS.

[tags]administrator,diana huggins,wsus,windows server update,network update[/tags]