Radia Patch Manager came in as a late submission. It arrived already pre-installed on a Windows 2000 notebook running SQL Server. The Patch Manager was made up of three components, the Patch Manager, Application Analyzer, and System Explorer.It's a relatively large package and possibly the most complex we looked at. We were informed that this product is suited to environments with over 1000 machines and can be installed on Windows NT/2000 Server and Windows Server 2003 and clients running Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, and XP. As for UNIX and Linux support, Novadigm has advised us it is currently working on this one. At the moment it only supports Microsoft operating systems and applications. However you can push out third-party software as executables that can run on client machines.
We were surprised that the Patch Manager has to install an agent prior to running any vulnerability assessments so the main software can better manage the client machines. The installation of agents was quite messy and can be time consuming.
The user interface was also a little primitive. The design would have been greatly improved if all the features could be accessed from one window. We had constantly switch windows to run the other components. Navigating within the applications was simple enough, but the information could have been displayed better. We had to scroll down long pages, which can make you forget what options are available at the start of the page. We are advised Novadigm is currently working on this.
To some extent this product also does asset management. It can give you a list of machines found on your network as well as what hardware components they are running.
This package doesn't do port scanning or virus scanning like some of the products we looked at, however out of all the dedicated patch management packages, this one seemed to be the most complete in terms of controlling and deploying patches. We wish Novadigm had made the interface more usable and made it an agentless solution. This product is quite often compared with Altiris Client Management software as both packages do more than just patch, however Altitis wasn't able to supply a product for us to review as the new version wasn't ready yet.
This package was well priced considering it does end-to-end patch management. Telephone and e-mail support doesn't come free, however, it will cost you 18 percent of the list price.
| Product | Novadigm Radia Patch Manager |
| Price | Appox. US$100 per server; US$35 per desktop |
| Vendor | Extended Enterprise Solutions |
| Phone | 02 9956 8555 |
| Web | www.ees.net.au |
| Interoperability |  |
| Runs on Windows machines. | |
| Futureproofing |  |
| Offers end-to-end patch management. | |
| ROI |  |
| Affordably priced and does more than any of the others. | |
| Service |  |
| 24x7 support for 18 percent of list price per year. Onsite support and training available. | |
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