Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of the Microsoft Windows operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers software updates for Windows, as well as the various Microsoft antivirus products, including Windows Defender and Microsoft Security Essentials. Since its inception, Microsoft has introduced two extensions of the service: Microsoft Update and Windows Update for Business. The former expands the core service to include other Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft Expression Studio. The latter is available to business editions of Windows 10 and permits postponing updates or receiving updates only after they have undergone rigorous testing.
VMware LLC is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture.
In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a given program reaches a certain (arbitrary) limit, or the software release has shown to be stabilized with a limited number of remaining issues based on users' feedback and bug reports. In large software applications such as office suites, operating systems, database software, or network management, it is not uncommon to have a service pack issued within the first year or two of a product's release. Installing a service pack is easier and less error-prone than installing many individual patches, even more so when updating multiple computers over a network, where service packs are common.
A patch is a set of changes to a computer program or its supporting data designed to update or repair it. This includes bugfixes or bug fixes to remove security vulnerabilities and correct bugs (errors). Patches are often written to improve the functionality, usability, or performance of a program. The majority of patches are provided by software vendors for operating system and application updates.
Microsoft Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) is a systems management software product developed by Microsoft for managing large groups of computers providing remote control, patch management, software distribution, operating system deployment, and hardware and software inventory. Configuration Manager supports the Microsoft Windows and Windows Embedded operating systems. Previous versions also supported macOS (OS X), Linux or UNIX, as well as Windows Phone, Symbian, iOS and Android mobile operating systems.
Microsoft Servers is a discontinued brand that encompasses Microsoft software products for server computers. This includes the Windows Server editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as products targeted at the wider business market. Microsoft has since replaced this brand with Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 and Windows 365.
Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server", is the fourth release of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of the operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and generally to retail on February 27, 2008. Derived from Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 is the successor of Windows Server 2003 and the predecessor to Windows Server 2008 R2.
Veritas Backup Exec is a data protection software product designed for customers with mixed physical and virtual environments, and who are moving to public cloud services. Supported platforms include VMware and Hyper-V virtualization, Windows and Linux operating systems, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Storage, among others. All management and configuration operations are performed with a single user interface. Backup Exec also provides integrated deduplication, replication, and disaster recovery capabilities and helps to manage multiple backup servers or multi-drive tape loaders.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is a discontinued software tool that is no longer available from Microsoft that determines security state by assessing missing security updates and less-secure security settings within Microsoft Windows, Windows components such as Internet Explorer, IIS web server, and products Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Office macro settings. Security updates are determined by the current version of MBSA using the Windows Update Agent present on Windows computers since Windows 2000 Service Pack 3. The less-secure settings, often called Vulnerability Assessment (VA) checks, are assessed based on a hard-coded set of registry and file checks. An example of a VA might be that permissions for one of the directories in the /www/root folder of IIS could be set at too low a level, allowing unwanted modification of files from outsiders. MBSA was written by Mark Shavlik working in partnership with Microsoft.
Ivanti is an IT software company headquartered in South Jordan, Utah, United States. It produces software for IT Security, IT Service Management, IT Asset Management, Unified Endpoint Management, Identity Management and supply chain management. It was formed in January 2017 with the merger of LANDESK and HEAT Software, and later acquired Cherwell Software. The company became more widely known after several major security incidents related to the VPN hardware it sells.
PlateSpin is a software suite of Micro Focus International. Originally a standalone software company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, registered in Delaware, US as Platespin Inc. and founded by Robert Reive in 1999 with co-founders added later David Richards, Bruno Baloi and M. Verdun. Intel corp. via the Intel64fund was a key investor, along with 4Quarters Capital, Castlehill Ventures(Barry Laver) and AltaMira, the latter three all of Toronto, Canada. The original product for which the patent was filed was the Platespin Operations Center, the first usable VM provisioning tool for low cost deployment of servers in their VMs to Vmware ESX and GSX on 64bit processors. Platespin Operations Centre was designed to reduce operations cost and more efficiently use the resources of large servers, as well as deal with routine security patches to software servers and their OS efficiently. Reformed after a bankruptcy in 2003, the revived company released three successful products and is now part of OpenText after its acquisition of MicroFocus. PlateSpin products help manage physical and virtualized server workloads on VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, Citrix XenServer, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) forms part of Microsoft's System Center line of virtual machine management and reporting tools, alongside previously established tools such as System Center Operations Manager and System Center Configuration Manager. SCVMM is designed for management of large numbers of Virtual Servers based on Microsoft Virtual Server and Hyper-V, and was released for enterprise customers in October 2007. A standalone version for small and medium business customers is available.
Ericom Software, Inc. is a Closter, New Jersey-based company that provides web isolation and remote application access software to businesses.
Quest KACE, formerly Dell KACE, is a company that specializes in computer appliances for systems management of information technology equipment. It also provides software for security, application virtualization, and systems management products. Established in 2003, KACE was headquartered in Mountain View, California with offices in Europe and Asia.
VHD and its successor VHDX are file formats representing a virtual hard disk drive (HDD). They may contain what is found on a physical HDD, such as disk partitions and a file system, which in turn can contain files and folders. They are typically used as the hard disk of a virtual machine, are built into modern versions of Windows, and are the native file format for Microsoft's hypervisor, Hyper-V.
WaveMaker is a Java-based low-code development platform designed for building software applications and platforms. The company, WaveMaker Inc., is based in Mountain View, California. The platform is intended to assist enterprises in speeding up their application development and IT modernization initiatives through low-code capabilities. Additionally, for independent software vendors (ISVs), WaveMaker serves as a customizable low-code component that seamlessly integrates into their products.
HP ConvergedSystem is a portfolio of system-based products from Hewlett-Packard (HP) that integrates preconfigured IT components into systems for virtualization, cloud computing, big data, collaboration, converged management, and client virtualization. Composed of servers, storage, networking, and integrated software and services, the systems are designed to address the cost and complexity of data center operations and maintenance by pulling the IT components together into a single resource pool so they are easier to manage and faster to deploy. Where previously it would take three to six months from the time of order to get a system up and running, it now reportedly takes as few as 20 days with the HP ConvergedSystem.
Citrix Virtual Apps is an application virtualization software produced by Citrix Systems that allows Windows applications to be accessed via individual devices from a shared server or cloud system.
MSP360, formerly CloudBerry Lab, is a software and application service provider company that develops online backup, remote desktop and file management products integrated with more than 20 cloud storage providers.
LPAR2RRD is an open-source software tool that is used for monitoring and reporting performance of servers, clouds and databases. It is developed by the Czech company XoruX.
